Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth
by The Last European
Summary: Jubilation Lee lives life on her own terms. It's just that sometimes she doesn't know exactly what those terms are.
1. Chapter 1

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter One

There are moments when I really wish I'd chosen a different line of work.

I mean, I'm smart girl. And you're supposed to be able to do anything, if you really put your mind to it, right? I could have been any number of things. An infinite number of things. I could have been a waitress or a hairstylist or a rock star. In these moments of longing, I think about what I could have been doing at that very moment, if I was a waitress or a hairstylist or a rock star. I could have been pouring coffee or adding bottle blonde to some socialite's very dark roots or playing a gig at the Whiskey.

Or I could have been sleeping. I'd have to say that's definitely in the top five on my "List of Things That I Could Be Doing That Would Suck Less Than What I'm Actually Doing". I have a sleep fetish. I have sleep fantasies. I have fantasies in which I am lying in a shaded hammock or on a sunny, sandy Caribbean beach or under a huge, fluffy down comforter in bed. And in those fantasies, I am blissfully, dreamlessly napping. That is the stuff that my wildest dreams are made of. Naps.

I'm a simple girl.

That moment was totally one of those moments. One of those magical, mystical flashes when I wished that I could have sold shoes or taught second grade or greeted people at Wal-Mart. I wished that I could have had a nice, normal occupation. Because people with nice, normal occupations did not find themselves in the kind of situations I found myself in. For example, people with nice, normal occupations did not spend six hours in a backless hospital gown, lying on the least comfortable bed in the entire universe, hooked up to an IV and wires and tubes and beeping things, while getting poked and prodded by the world's foremost medical staff.

Did I mention that I had this super-fun party of a day because I was shot with a poison dart? Because I was. I was shot with a dart – a fucking dart! – that had been tipped with a slow-acting poison.

Wait. Let me break it down so that you'll understand the full magnitude of the sitch.

I had been poisoned.

With a dart.

That was shot at me.

On purpose.

People with normal occupations are not poisoned with darts on purpose. Normal people would be horrified by the getting stabbed in the neck and the beeping and the butt-flashing garb. Normal people have normal job and normal jobs do not require that level of dedication. But I'm not a normal person; I don't have a normal job and that kind of stuff happened to me all the time. I think the med lab saw me naked more than my boyfriend did.

Of course, I never really, truly had a whole hell of a lot of options. When the only skills you've ever really learned are subterfuge, tactics, information gathering and ass-kicking, your career choices are pretty much either law enforcement or one of the exciting opportunities in professional crime. I chose the former. Not that SHIELD was really law enforcement, per se, but whatever. That was what was on the letterhead; that was the story I stuck to. Though I can't say that I'd never been tempted to put "Super Secret Spy" on my tax return. That would have been fun in so many different ways, including the level of gasket that Accounting would have blown. I might have even gotten a call from the Finance Director again. That's right: again! See, this one time I had to ditch all of my gear and blew up a transport _and _had to buy off a mid-level officer in the PLAAF. That was a really expensive vacation.

And another story altogether.

On the day of the poison dart, I hadn't even been on assignment. I was coming out of a Starbucks in Brooklyn, the Borough I currently call home, when I felt a sharp pain in my neck. That turned out to be how it feels when you get shot with a dart. Aren't new experiences just the best? I, for one, sure am glad that I can now safely say that I know exactly what getting pierced with a high velocity metal spike feels like. And, hey, the next time it happens, I'll be way less confused.

Okay, let me now repeat that I was shot with a poison dart in front of a Starbucks on a street in Brooklyn while holding a venti-non-fat-caramel-macchiato-with-extra-caramel. And then I woke up on the Helicarrier with the doctors and the beeping and no macchiato. I think I may have been more pissed about that than anything else. So, I shut my eyes and thought about normal people and how they could drink their six dollar coffee beverages without being interrupted by assassination attempts.

I willed myself to suddenly be waiting tables at a Denny's in Des Moines.

"Dead yet?" A crisply non-specific European accent broke through my funk.

"No such luck." I said without opening my eyes. "Your evil scheming has been foiled again."

"Curses!"

I opened my eyes and squinted in the harsh light at the woman before me. Sashenka Grachev was tall, blonde and gorgeous. I totally would have hated her for it had she not been my closest friend. The Human Resources liaison for my usual team, Sasha and I had bonded over our similar status as all-alone-in-the-world-orphans and relative social misfits. SHIELD was overwhelmingly heartland America. It annoyed the hell out of both of us.

"So, what's the good word, Sash?" I asked.

"They say Jesus died for our sins," she replied. "It must have been a truly spectacular death to make up for you."

"Not that good word. What's the word on me?"

Sasha sat gingerly on the edge of my bed. She was perfectly put together in a pencil-skirted power suit and flawless makeup, her hair long, smooth and shiny. I hadn't seen a mirror lately, but I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be winning any beauty pageants.

Great. Poisoned and insecure.

I must have looked totally miserable because Sasha patted my arm reassuringly. "I have spoken with Doctor Makris. She said that if you're a really good girl, you can get out of here within the hour."

"Oh, joy," I replied. "After a million hours of tests, they throw me a good behavior bribe."

Sasha frowned and, instead of patting my arm, pinched it. Hard.

"Ow! Hey!" I complained and tried to rub my arm with my IV hand. "That hurt, you whore!"

"You very well could have died," Sasha scolded me. "The least you can do it try to be a little bit nice to the staff. They make a living saving your life."

I snorted. "And a helluva good one, too. What with the amount of almost-dead this place seems to offer. They should include that in the benefits package. Agent of SHIELD: Now with even more near-death experiences!"

"Well you could always quit," Sasha said.

"Yes, I really could."

"Oh God, you've been thinking about Des Moines again, haven't you?" Sasha asked me, her eyes practically rolling out of her head. "Jubilation, I give you ten minutes in a civilian job before you're dying of boredom and begging to come back."

It was a conversation we had often. Usually after an especially traumatic day and a particularly large bottle of wine, we would talk about our hopes and dreams and what we would do if we could do anything at all. Sashenka had a degree from Columbia in Management and mid-level position in SHIELD's Human Resources department. She wanted to get her PH.D from Yale University in Renaissance Studies. She wanted to be a curator at a museum. She wanted to find a nice, wealthy man and have two spoiled children. She wanted things that were much more complicated than the things that I wanted. Complicated, but still much more attainable.

I wanted to sit on my couch and watch VH-1 for an entire Sunday. I wanted to spend more than two waking hours a week with my boyfriend. I wanted to be thirteen-years-old again, rollerblading inside the mansion even though the Professor had asked me not to. I wanted White Day to have never happened.

It's been almost three years since White Day.


	2. Chapter 2

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Two

It's been almost three years since White Day.

It's been almost three years since I became human.

The Helicarrier has become a massively important presence in my life. That's something I will totally admit. Like a lot of agents, I lived on board for the first year of my career. After a while, I started to think of the Helicarrier like she was member of my family. Since I don't have any family, that was a pretty major deal. I think, at the time, I loved that ship more than I loved any of the people in my life. While living on board, I had risen through the ranks pretty quickly, mostly because of my previous training. I guess I should probably thank my teachers for that, someday. Maybe I'll buy some pretty heart-and-flowers stationary and write them letters.

_Dear Frosty: Thanks for being a world-class bitch. I can totally deal with anyone now. Plus, if I ever need to go undercover as a whorey dominatrix, I'll have someone to draw on for inspiration!_

Not that I'll be able to get a letter to Sean, these days. But I figure all I'll have to do is wait a while. You know what they say: Good heroes don't die, they just hang out somewhere on the astral plane, waiting to be brought back to life. Hey, we've all been there, right?

So, I love Helicarrier; but no matter how awesome I think she is, there are still two parts of the her that I totally hate. One is the Executive Director's offices. I hate going to meetings there. It always makes me feel like I've been sent to the headmaster's office, which is kind of not conducive to making yourself come off like a total badass.

The second section - and this is the one that I hate more than Ryan Seacrest, _7th Heaven_ and floppy emo band hair combined – is the Medical Lab. There are a lot of reasons for this. For one, physicals suck. They're just a big, mean reminder that I'm short, skinny and have a bullet scar on my back that means I can't wear anything strapless. Additionally, doctors tend to say things like "No, you may not steal state's secrets with a concussion." And that is so irritating.

And then, of course, there's the stuff they give you to wear home after you've been almost-dead.

On Poison Dart Day, after a full twelve hours in the lab, I was finally all de-tubed and IV-less. The beeping things had been turned off and I was given the A-OK to go home. Under penalty of Very Stern Doctor Looks, I was told to stick to bed-rest and take a butt-load of various shaped, sized and coloured pills. Sasha, who, by some miracle, had arranged for me to take a week off, was going to see that I went directly home and to bed.

Directly home, that is, as soon as I had something to wear. When I asked the nurse where the clothes I had been wearing when I was brought in were, she looked suitably scared and just shook her head before she practically ran out the door. She really didn't need to worry. I was way too tired to throw a temper tantrum. Instead, I said a silent eulogy for my clothes.

Goodbye perfectly cut Dolce & Gabbana jeans that were amazingly on-sale and then expertly hemmed to fit my short little legs. Goodbye fun and whimsical Camp Beverly Hills tank top. Goodbye black leather motorcycle jacket that Prada doesn't even make anymore. Goodbye Miu Miu kitten-heeled boots that I couldn't believe actually came in a size small enough to fit my feet.

The nurse returned with a set of SHIELD issue PT sweats. The stack that I took from her looked suspiciously thick. And then she handed me a belt. I looked from the sweats to the belt to her.

"The only size available was large," she said apologetically.

Crap.

I'm five-feet-one-inch tall. Which is what I tell people my height is. Except really I'm five feet tall. Which is what is on my driver's license. Except really I'm four-feet-eleven-and-three-quarters-inches tall. Which is what my SHIELD medical file says. Except really I'm four-feet-eleven-and-one-half-inches tall. I always stand on my tip-toes just a little bit during my medical exams.

I went into the restroom to put on the sweats. I belted the pants around my waist and rolled up the arms and legs. It took me a minute to work up the courage to look in the mirror. I should have worked on it longer. I somehow managed to look both funny and scary at the same time. I tried to comb my short, angled bob out with my fingers and remove some of my smeared makeup with a damp paper towel.

By the time I came out of the bathroom, Sasha was just coming back. She stopped dead when she saw me. I watched her struggle with the overwhelming urge to laugh hysterically.

I really, really wanted to cry.

"It's fine," I said. "Go ahead and laugh. I've only been poisoned and then had the Prada forcibly removed from my body, never to be seen again."

That ended the struggle. Sasha was more of a shopaholic than I was. "Oh, Juju," she breathed. "Not the motorcycle jacket."

I nodded miserably. Sasha actually teared up a little bit.

"It'll be alright," she said, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. "We'll go out shopping when you're feeling better."

"They don't make that anymore! It's impossible to find!" I whined as she ushered me out to the exit.

"I know, sweetie, I know."

I've been asked what it was like to lose my powers. Did I feel better? Did I feel differently? Did it hurt? I always just smile and say that there wasn't any difference. That it was like having a birthday – you never actually feel older on your birthday. I told people that being a mutant feels exactly like being a human.

I lied.

It was the least I could do for mutant-human relations. To explain how it really felt would only make the already monumental tension between the species that much worse. It felt like losing a part of my body I didn't realize existed. It felt like losing my soul.

By the time I was released from the med-lab, it was already night again. I'd spent the whole damn day recovering. What a waste. I was exhausted and achy and the flight back to New York City was making me nauseas. Sasha sat next to me in the transport. She had insisted on seeing me home, though it totally squicked her out. She had a pretty apartment in Manhattan and couldn't figure out why I insisted on living in one of the less classy boroughs. Hey, at least it wasn't the Bronx and my apartment building only looked like a hovel from the outside. Inside it was actually pretty cool.

"You know, you could stay with me," Sasha said. "My second bedroom is really very comfortable. You probably shouldn't be alone, anyway."

It was a totally loaded offer. She was really remarking on the fact that my boyfriend hadn't been to see me in the med-lab, even though he was almost certainly on board the Helicarrier, and would almost certainly not be popping by to take care of me. Sasha didn't entirely approve of my relationship choices. She thought he made my life too complicated. Right. Too complicated for a nineteen-year-old former mutant, former member of the X-Men and current covert operative? Ha! As much as Sasha may have wanted to, she didn't really understand my life. She didn't really understand him. Not many people did.

On White Day, the first thing I noticed was the quiet. Everything was so silent. I knew something was different. Something was wrong.

The universe used to sing to me. The elements crowed at me to choose them, use them. I used to have to yell to hear myself over them. I had to chatter to drown them out.

I don't talk so much anymore.

My powers were so much more than I had ever imagined. I had to lose them to figure that out. White Day was the first moment of peace I could remember ever having. And it was terrible. Like losing a limb without even the phantom movement to make me forget it was gone.

People hated mutants even more after White Day and it was a sort of planetary uniting force. Different races were still human. Different religions were still human. Gays and lesbians were still human. They were all human. So, while they may have distrusted and abused each other, they were still the same. Mutants, though? We weren't human. Not even a little bit. Neither mutants nor the human-born knew it. Only we, the decimated, knew that little secret. After White Day, we knew more than we had ever wanted to. Most of us were really quiet about it. We didn't talk. We didn't tell anyone what we knew. We just said that everything was fine. That it was no big deal. That it was just the same. We didn't say how different and awful it really was. Because the world was afraid.

And really, honestly, truly, for real?

They were right to be.

After White Day, that much was crystal-fucking-clear.


	3. Chapter 3

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Three

The transport dropped me off at home. Door to door service is a pretty big perk of the job, especially since it's just a teensy bit impossible to take the subway to work when your office is a mobile, floating fortress. From the outside, my building in Brooklyn looks like a crumbling wreck of brick and stone. Inside, though, it's a shabby-chic marvel of original fixtures and vintage furniture. The apartments are all either owner-occupied or sublet and almost everyone knows each other by name. There's a lot of retired law-enforcement, so I fit in pretty well. In fact, my next door neighbor, Mrs. Hagherty's, late-husband was career SHIELD. She told me how proud he had been to serve with Colonel Fury, right up to the day he died in the line of duty – thirty years earlier. There was a picture of them, shaking hands. The Colonel in the picture was identical to the Colonel I knew. Pretty unnerving, no matter how used to that sort of thing I'd become.

I was happy to see Vedo clerking the desk in the lobby. He was my favorite. He had a look (tall, skinny, long hands) and a 'tude (street-smart and mouthy) that totally reminded me of Ange. His jaw dropped when I dragged ass into the lobby.

"Holy shit, girl," he said in his heavy Brooklyn-Puerto Rican accent. "What the holy Hell happened to you?"

I shook my head. "Long day at work."

"I got those, too, and you don't see me like a strangled cat." Vedo got up from behind the desk and offered me his arm. I declined with a weak wave of my hand. He sighed noisily and trotted to the elevator in front of me to hit the call button. The doors dinged open immediately, thank God. I couldn't have taken Vedo's disapproving headshaking. I chose my floor, leaned heavily against the back wall of the elevator and rallied my brain cells enough to ask him how his latest audition went.

He did a backwards slide with jazz hands as the elevator began to shut. "Apparently, I'm much too fabulous for them," he said in a singsong, the doors clicking together, separating us.

It was near-dark inside my apartment, dim light from the street casting a seedy glow. The place is small, but it's all mine. I bought it just over a year ago, before the second anniversary of White Day. It was after the mission to Malaysia, the one that had gone so totally, disastrously wrong. I was about to finish my second tour on board the Helicarrier; and, after I woke up from the coma, I realized that I needed to separate my work from my personal life if I was going to make it to my nineteenth birthday with most of my marbles still safely in my pocket.

The light on my answering machine was blinking. I pressed the play button and contemplated lying down on the kitchen floor. I had a message from Paige, which reminded me that the last time I had washed the kitchen floor had been the last time she had visited me, thereby totally negating my desire to lie down on it.

Paige drawled that she and Warren were going to be in the city the following week and insisted that my boyfriend and I join them for dinner. I snorted. It was hard enough to drag him away from work without throwing in an evening with those two. Paige had kept her powers while Warren hadn't. He actually seemed pretty stoked about the whole deal. Now he's just a handsome mondobillionaire, rather than a handsome mondobillionaire with wings. Lucky him.

Against all odds, Warren and Paige had stuck together and their level of happy, cutesy coupledom was enough to make me hurl. I deleted her message and made a silent promise to call her back when I was feeling less like freshly poisoned crap.

I was two weeks late picking up my dry cleaning, so sayeth Mrs. Wong from the machine. The sheets I had ordered--queen sized, red satin--were in, thus spoke Mandy from Victoria's Secret.

The answering machine beeped. I yawned.

I slouched into the bathroom and contemplated bath versus shower. A bath sounded better. Unfortunately, there was the very real possibility of my passing out in the water. While I'd die in my bathroom like a rock star, Doctor Makris would probably resuscitate me just to give me a lecture about undoing her hard day's life-saving work. Shower was the winner. I stood under the spray and rested my head against the wall. The water was almost hot enough to be uncomfortable. I breathed the steam in and tried to clear my head.

But I thought about Malaysia. I thought about White Day.

There have been a few serious markers in my life, events that so totally changed my direction that they stand out. The first was when I realized I was a mutant. The second was when my parents died. There was Australia. There was White Day. And then there was Malaysia.

Before Malaysia, I was part of a team - second-in-command to a Cape, an ancient necromancer named Vatinius. After Malaysia there wasn't a team left. There was only Vatinius and I. He came back half-crazy. I almost didn't come back at all. Malaysia changed me and it changed my status at SHIELD. The mission that destroyed my team and many others, that murdered my friends and broke a leader I respected and cared about, made me more valuable to the organization. It still makes me feel sick.

More than that, though, Malaysia was the last nail in the coffin that held my old life. It had been way over a year since White Day but I was still clinging to hope that I'd be able to somehow reclaim the life and the family that I used to have. After White Day, I found myself in Westchester, human, with memories of my own life and a life that wasn't really mine. I barely knew who I was, anymore. It wasn't long before Emma told me that I couldn't stay at the mansion, that I would have to make my own way in the world. That was a week before my seventeenth birthday.

I had nothing. The world was in chaos. After I left the mansion, I spent a month looking for the one person I thought would always accept me, would always love me. He didn't want to be found. I almost choked to death on my grief. I missed him. I missed my purpose. I missed my life.

And, oh God, I missed Jean. I missed her so much. Even more than I had before, if that was even possible. Jean had been my one real constant. After Logan left, she had asked me if I would allow her to become my legal guardian. It was exactly what I needed – to feel wanted without Logan around to insist. She had a genius for helping people. For making them feel at ease. For showing them how much she loved them. Jean encouraged me. Scolded me. Cajoled me. She accepted my decision to go to the Academy and insisted that I spend all of my vacations with her. She accepted my wandering ways and when she thought I'd gone too far or too long, she brought me back. She made me know that nothing would ever change how much she cared about me. Her death had left a vacuous hole in my life that seemed to gape even larger after White Day. Jean had been my mother. My sister. My comrade-in-arms. My friend. I sometimes wonder if that's why Emma kicked me out.

And sometimes I wonder if I would have ended up at SHIELD had Jean still been alive. I'm not sure. I was still a minor when I went to the Colonel for a job. While legality doesn't exactly apply to SHIELD, he asked me if I needed my guardian's permission. I told him that I didn't know, but the next time she resurrected herself, I'd ask. He seemed genuinely surprised. I think, when he'd mentioned it, he was talking about Logan. Totally ridiculous.

The shower was making me light-headed. I quickly washed my hair and body. The lather smelled like peppermint candy and Christmas. I wrapped myself in a big, soft towel and sat on the edge of the bathtub. I hugged myself with my arms and leaned forward, resting my forehead on my knees.

I thought about my life.

I thought about Des Moines.

I went to bed.

My pajamas were the softest pink flannel and had cartoon pictures of candy on them. I slipped into bed, grateful for the luxury cotton sheets. I curled my body against a pillow, clutching it to my chest and slid quickly into a dreamless sleep. It was nine o'clock.

I woke at ten to my Sidekick ringing at a deafening level.

"Fuck," I muttered and willed it to stop with the Jedi powers of my mind. The phone vibrated across the bedside table. I fumbled for it, my hands clumsy and thick feeling.

"Lee," I answered the phone, my voice all rough and croaky.

"Where are you?" was my boyfriend's brusque greeting.

"Home," I replied, not entirely able to keep the whine out of my voice.

"Well, get your ass back here," he said, ignoring how totally shitty I sounded. That really torked me off.

"Dude, I'm on med leave, which you would know if you had bothered to..."

"Transport'll be there in ten," he interrupted me. And then he hung up.

Fucker.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to quit. I wanted to smash my cell phone and go back to sleep. I wondered about the feasibility of kicking a man who was well over a foot taller than me in the face.

An hour before, I had been under strict orders to rest and recuperate. An hour later, I would be back on the Helicarrier and back to work.

Because that's just how my life is.


	4. Chapter 4

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Four

It took me longer than ten minutes to put on a SHIELD uniform and pack my black sports bag. I assumed I'd be on the Helicarrier overnight and didn't plan on getting caught without clothes small enough to fit me again.I put my black trench coat on to cover the insignias on my shoulders and headed out the door, giving my little apartment one last, sad look. The transport was already waiting for me by the time I made it downstairs again. Unfortunately, Vedo was waiting for me, too. Having recognized the sleek body of the type of Land-Sea-Air vehicle that SHIELD used as a transport workhorse, he was standing in front of the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest.

"No," he said as soon as he saw me.

"Apparently, it's 'yes'," I answered, gesturing toward the overnight bag.

"No way they want you back already," he insisted.

"Ah, but they do."

"No."

"Yes," I countered.

"You need a new job," Vedo said. He gave me a once over and made an ick face. "One with a different dress code."

I pulled my coat closer around me. He could never resist a crack about the uniform.

"If only we could get Marc Jacobs to design for us," I cracked back.

"You need to quit that place."

"But who'll support me in the totally extravagant manner that I'm so used to?"

Vedo grinned. "You just wait 'til I'm rich and famous."

"Oooo...do I get to be in your posse?" I enthused.

"Are you kidding? You're my Nicole Kidman. We're gonna get married and secretly fight over the pool boy."

"Oh, please," I laughed. "Like anyone would believe you're actually straight."

"Like anyone believes Tom Cruise is actually straight."

We grinned at each other. Vedo finally shook his head and stepped aside, opening the door for me.

"Coffee this week?" he asked.

I nodded as I left the building. A cool, autumn rain had started to fall. "I'll call you when I get back."

"Hey, chica," he called after me. I smiled at the endearment. It was crazy how Angelo he was sometimes.

"Yeah, Ved'?" I looked over my shoulder at him.

"You be careful. With, y'know, whatever it is that you do."

I winked at him and swung myself into the transport.

The driver didn't comment on the greatness of my lateness. He drove until we hit the designated take-off area and then hit the vertical thrusts. We rose above the cloud cover and the rain, up-up-up to where the atmosphere was clearer. It wasn't quite the crystalline cutting edge of space that I remembered from years before, but it was sharper than the ground, less oppressive than the city. It made me feel like I had clawed free from a plastic bag that had been tied tightly around my head. I had to resist an almost overwhelming urge to take huge hiccupping breaths as though my lungs were starving for air.

The Helicarrier was over the Atlantic, some distance off of the city. We had been circulating over the ocean a lot. I think maybe everyone felt more at ease over international waters, though no one would ever come right out and say so. Even in the head-shrinking sessions Human Resources insisted I needed, we never talked about it. We talked about every traumatic event my file held – the death of my parents, the torture at Hulkbuster, the torture on the lawn of the mansion, the incident in Malaysia - but the fallibilities of SHIELD were never mentioned. The carrier itself was more impressive than ever, rebuilt from fore to aft after taking a swan dive into the ground over three years earlier. It was impossible to not be impressed by her massive force. Still, it was a sensitive subject.

The halls were so familiar that I could find my way around the ship blindfolded. After docking, I went to the office of my Commanding Officer, Major Gage, where I was told that he was waiting for me in the Executive Director's offices. I knew right then that my time off was totally DOA. The Colonel never involved himself in my work unless there was something really big going on.

In the Executive Director's suite, I found the man himself, sitting at the head of an imposingly large, angular conference table. You would have thought that after our last crash landing, they might have gone with "soft and padded" rather than "angular and skull-crushing". Worker safety? Not really a SHIELD priority.

With him, at the conference table, sat Major Gage and an out-of-costume Captain America. Great. A Cape. That was just what I needed to deal with after the kind of day I had already had. Gage and the Cape stood when I entered. The Colonel didn't. Gage offered me his chair, to the Colonel's right and across the table from Captain America. As I sat, I glanced at Nick for some kind of acknowledgement. He didn't even look at me. Jerk-face.

"It's good to see you again, Agent Lee," Captain America smiled warmly at me. He was a nice guy. I don't trust nice guys. All of that smiling has to be covering up something else.

"Likewise, Captain," I smiled back. I could totally play his reindeer games. "I just wish it were under better circumstances."

"Let's not jump the gun, Lee," the Executive Director said thinly, finally looking at me long enough to glare at me through the slit lid of his good eye.

"I'm sorry, have you pulled me off of medical leave in the middle of the night for a tea party, Colonel?" I asked. Sometimes he made it seriously hard for me to remember that I'm a grown-up. "Or is there some totally dire emergency needing my immediate attention?"

"All right, y'all," Major Gage drawled. "Let's use our company manners before the nice superhero decides that we don't know what we're doing."

Six-foot-six and built like a bulldozer, Gage looked like the blue-eyed, blonde-haired poster child for the Aryan Nation. The Texas twang seemed almost unnatural, rumbling out of his Teutonic frame.

"Oh, I'm certain you know what you're doing. We wouldn't all be here otherwise." Captain America smiled at me again. And with his certainty I, myself, was suddenly absolutely certain that I was about to get an assignment that I was really not going to like. That I was, in fact, going to hate with a level ten bazillion DungeonMaster hatred. He was being way too nicey-nice, even for the kind of suck-up skills a media-whoring Cape like he had. 'Cause if there's one thing more irritating than a Cape, it's a Cape in front of a camera. He was turning on the charm like I was Katie Couric. While I'm sure Katie would fall for that crap, I sure wasn't going to. Obviously, I wasn't the only person in the room who was uncomfortable with how this was going down. The Colonel, not exactly sweet-tempered under the best of circumstances, was more sour than usual. Even the usually good-natured Major Gage looked totally exasperated. Strange things were afoot at the Circle K.

"Agent Lee," Captain America continued. "It's my understanding that you're the go-to guy for recon work in Asia."

I tilted my head in affirmation. "Parts of. China, mainly. Korea. Indonesia. Singapore. I don't have quite as good a handle on Japan."

"Malaysia?"

"Yeah," I agreed, trying not to betray how reluctant I was to admit it. "Malaysia, too."

"Madripoor?" he asked.

He was still smiling, still playing Mr. Congeniality, but I knew by the way he held eye contact that these were big money questions. I just didn't know why.

"Not in recent years, though I might be able to dig up some old contacts." I paused without breaking his stare. What the hell was he up to? Was he trying to alpha-dog me? And if he was, why would he? I was outranked by everyone in the room. I continued delicately, still trying to figure him out. "But I'm sure there are certain people who would have better luck there than I would, if Madripoor's what you're interested in."

"Who said I was interested in Madripoor?" He smiled even wider.

I felt like I had just fallen for something. Like I was getting punked by Captain America. I looked away first. Fine. Let him feel like he won something. Only I couldn't ignore the feeling that he really had won something. I looked at Major Gage. He seemed like he would rather be anywhere than here. I glanced over at Colonel Fury. He looked totally torked. There was definitely something going on here besides the usual politics. I must have stepped into the middle of some kind of SHIELD pissing contest. I wanted to lay my head down on the table. I felt way too cruddy to deal with this macho bullshit.

"There are rumblings about a new power coming out of the East," Captain America said, drawing my attention back to him. "Dawning of a new age, changing of the guard, etcetera. Have you heard anything like that?"

I shrugged. "Sounds like the usual rhetoric. It's usually some dime store gangster trying to make a power play. Most of the time, they end up cut into very small pieces."

"Who does the cutting?"

"Usual suspects. Yakuza. What's left of Yashida. Sometimes the PLA. They don't like upstarts."

He nodded like a teacher pleased with his student. "That was our original assessment as well. Let them clean their own house."

Typical. They should have called him Captain Xenophobia. It's a good thing my legs weren't long enough to kick him under the table. I'm not sure I could have resisted.

"Except we got a communication that makes it seem like that ain't quite the case," the Colonel interjected. He glowered at Captain America. I had never seen him be so openly hostile to a Cape whom SHIELD had a working relationship with. It made me feel a little bit queasy.

"So, where do I fit in?" I asked, trying to move the meeting to its inevitable conclusion.

"Recon," Major Gage said. "Starting with your usual contacts in Beijing and going on from there where it leads you."

"Is that where the communiqué came from?" I asked him.

Fury snapped out an answer before the Major could respond. "No, it ain't. That came from Madripoor."

"And that's where the Avengers come in," Captain America finished.

And I finally understood what the big stink was all about.

"So, I'm going with an Avenger," I said as a statement rather than a question.

Captain America nodded. "One who will be able to compliment your areas of expertise."

"One who knows Japan and Madripoor as well as I know the rest."

He nodded to the affirmative. I glanced over at the Colonel again. He had swiveled his chair toward the huge windows. His fingers steepled, he looked out at the clear, starry sky in front of him.

I looked back at Captain America. "When do we ship out?"

"In the morning," he said. He smiled that warm, genial, Midwestern, Mom's apple pie smile. I wanted to try to remove his teeth with my fist. He stood. Major Gage and I followed. The Colonel didn't even look at us.

"We're counting on you, Agent Lee," Captain America said. "The intel on this is..." He paused a moment, his features darkening. "Well, it's disturbing. You'll see what I mean when you read the file."

He shook my hand over the table. Major Gage slapped me lightly on the back. And then they left me alone with the Colonel to bask in the glow of the uncomfortable silence. After a moment, I spoke.

"That dude sucks."

He didn't answer me and that just wouldn't do. If there's one thing I hate, it's being ignored. I kicked his chair, lightly. His scowl deepened.

"Turn in, Lee. You're gonna have a long day tomorrow."

And if there are two things I hate, they're being ignored and getting blown off. They annoy me. And I was definitely being ignored, that was definitely a blow-off and I was definitely annoyed. When I'm annoyed I tend to have very little concern for my own welfare.

"What's the matter, Jan?" I asked nastily. "Marcia steal the spotlight again?"

He was out of his chair and in my face so quickly, I hardly had time to snap to attention. Had I ever entertained the notion that I might be able to take him in a fight, I sure as hell wouldn't have after that. That man was fast.

"Agent," he barked at me. "Did my dismissal of you sound like an invitation for further discussion on my personal state of being?"

"No, sir!" I bellowed back at him.

He was pretty scary, too. At six-foot-four, he loomed over me. He weighed more than twice as much as I did. I'd have been a moron not to be intimidated by him. Threat assessment had become a natural reaction for me. All of my training, all of my instincts told me that he could kill me before I could even think about getting away. That's one of the worst feelings ever. That absolute lack of power. That lack of control. Sometimes I wondered what I was doing in a military organization. I'm not exactly a 'respect my authority' kind of girl.

The Colonel was silent, towering over me. I watched him waiver and, suddenly, the anger leaked out of him, like air out of a balloon, until he seemed totally deflated. He looked tired, so tired. More tired than I felt. He folded back into his chair again and, for just a moment, he actually looked small. I hesitantly moved closer to him.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "That was really uncalled for. You know me – I'll talk myself to death someday."

He laughed a harsh, quick, barking laugh. "Like you ain't got enough ways to die already."

Oh. Fuck. Poison dart.

My mouth was once again a close and personal friend of my foot. The bizarro-world meeting - and the fact that he hadn't been into Medical to check on me - made just a little more sense and I couldn't help feeling like a total douche. The whole day had pretty much been a major suck-out for me. I stood there, in front of him, trying to think of something to say that would make everything better.

"Hey," I started gently.

He interrupted me. "Go on, now. Get to bed."

After the little drill-sergeant episode we just had, I decided it was probably best to just shut the fuck up and do as I was told. I was at the door before I turned back to him. He was looking out the window again, his bulletproof tough-guy face already back in place.

"You gonna be a while?" I asked him.

He didn't look back at me. "Got some loose ends to tie up."

I sighed. He totally didn't even answer my question. Men.

I stopped in the anteroom to pick up my bag. As I said goodnight to the on-duty staff, I was thankful for the conference room's soundproofing. Getting a dressing down was embarrassing enough without the entire ship knowing it.

I might not have agreed with Sasha a lot of the time, but she was right about one thing. I did make my life more complicated than it needed to be. Dating in the workplace is a really awful idea. Dating your boss is an even worse idea. And when your boss is Nick Fury, it has to be off-the-charts stupid. Guess I won't be getting any calls from MENSA.


	5. Chapter 5

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Five

Captain America was lying in wait for me.

He was, I swear. There is no other way to describe it. Sure, he was talking to Major Gage. Sure. But why skulk around in a corridor? Unless he was waiting for something, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. I tried to sneak past them without being noticed. Of course, super-spy that I am, it didn't work.

"Agent Lee," he said the moment I tried to get away. "Could I have a word with you?"

I pasted on a smile as though there was nothing I would rather do than stand around and jaw with some Cape. Gage shot me a sympathetic look. Not that his pity stopped him from shaking the Captain's hand and then making a break for it.

"I'll walk with you," Cap' said to me. "Here, let me take that bag for you."

I waved off his outstretched hand. "It's fine; I've got it."

"Look, I know you're sick. You must be exhausted. Let me take your bag," he insisted. "I promise I won't tell anyone."

He looked at me like I was going to have to fight him to actually carry my own bag. I finally shrugged and let him take it. Honestly, it was kind of a relief to not have to lug it around myself. You'll never get me to admit it, though. In my own defense, I really did feel like total crap. Whatever emergency reserves of energy my body had were running seriously low. So, I let him carry my stuff, okay? Whatever. It's not like he put his cape over a puddle for me or anything.

"How did you know I'm not feeling well?" I asked him as we walked.

"You said you were on medical leave," he replied. "Though, honestly, I knew before that. I've been on-board since this afternoon."

I glanced up at him while we walked. And I mean seriously up. God, if for nothing else, I'd have missed Logan for his height, or lack thereof. Why are all the men in my life so damn tall, these days? I'm telling you, I practically have to break my neck just to look a dude in the eyes.

"Busy day in the bureaucracy of hero-ing?" I asked. Fuck it. I'd had enough of the making nice. Let's see how charming he could be without a yes-man to work off of.

"Actually, just the one problem you're going to be working on. There were a lot of issues that needed to be worked out."

"That complicated, huh?" I asked

"Yeah. That complicated. I practically had to brawl with Fury to get him to assign you to this."

"Well, Captain," I said totally condescendingly. "He probably doesn't appreciate being told who to put where in his own organization."

Unfortunately, my spiteful statement went overlooked when we turned a corner and nearly ran into another agent. The agent was a total Captain America fan boy; I had to listen to the gushing and try not to hurl. Some people are so lame about stupid Capes. I took the opportunity to study the Captain and try to cold-read him a little bit.

He looked like an All-American frat boy. Blue jeans. Sneakers. Green Oxford – untucked, sleeves rolled up. Blonde hair neatly cut. No wedding band or evidence of matrimonial bliss thereof. He was a picture-perfect model of likeability. There was nothing there to read. Captain America was a blank canvas.

He shook the other agent's hand with a genial smile and gestured for us to be on our way. We hadn't gone far when he lobbed a knuckleball at me.

"Hey," he said suddenly. "What do you call the Colonel when he's not in uniform?"

See? A knuckleball. What the hell kind of question was that?

"When is he not in uniform?" I answered the question with a question, totally deftly avoiding actually answering it.

"Well, I'd assume he doesn't sleep in it," he replied.

And Eureka! That was it. He was playing the 'you're sleeping with the boss' card. It was so obvious, I could have laughed.

"What exactly are you attempting to glean here, sir?" I asked.

"Humor me," he insisted. I wondered if I could wrestle my bag back from him and run. Probably not. Chemically engineered super-soldier and all.

"Alright," I gave in. "I call him Nick. As his friends do."

"Ah-ha. When I'm not in uniform, my friends call me Steve," he said.

"Is that so, Captain?"

"Yes, it is. Hey, you could call me Steve," he said as though it had just occurred to him.

"We're not exactly friends."

"I'd like to change that."

I stopped walking. "This is a really bizarre conversation."

He laughed. "Yeah, I have a lot of those."

"Me too," I replied, thinking about it. My life was pretty much one big, fat, weird tête-à-tête.

"See? Common ground."

"I guess," I said, feeling once again like Ashton Kutcher was going to come running up the corridor screaming about how good he got me. We started walking again and turned the corner that brought me to my destination: Nick's quarters. I stopped.

"This is you, huh?" he asked.

"This is me."

He studied the door for a moment before looking down at me again. "You and Nick...you're not covert about your relationship."

"No," I admitted. "We're not."

He nodded. "I admire that. It's refreshing."

I shrugged. "What's the point in sneaking around?"

"I agree," he said, offering me back my overnight bag. He studied my face. "Don't be too hard on him, alright? He went to the mat for you today."

That surprised me. "Funny, hearing you defend him."

"Yeah, it's funny to do the defending," he said. He looked up and down the hallway as though making sure there was no one coming before continuing. "It's no secret that Nick and I haven't been on friendly terms for a while. I think he's made some mistakes. Maybe he made them with the best intentions, but they were still mistakes. Big ones."

"That's your opinion," I said coldly.

"It is," he agreed. "It's also my opinion that this place can't survive without him. When he went underground, it wasn't a month before everyone, myself included, was begging him to come back and pick up Director Hill's mess.

He looked sheepishly sincere. I knew better than to take it at face value. The X-Men don't raise no fools. I crossed my arms over my chest and squinted up at him.

He sighed. "Let me just cut to the chase..."

"Please, do," I interrupted him.

"Look," he said. "You're good at your job. Very good. You have the contacts, the dedication and the skill. But that's only part of the reason I wanted you and only you for this. From what I've seen, from what I've heard, I think you bring out the best in Nick. I think you make him better at his job. I think you make him a better man. And I think you have that effect on other people, too."

I stared at him, momentarily totally dumbstruck. Captain America had left me speechless. That was, like, a monumental achievement. It took at least two seconds of open-mouthed staring for me to regain the ability to verbally communicate.

"I'm going to assume that you're referring to Wolverine," I said. "If that's not the case, then please excuse what I'm about to say." I paused and took a deep breath. "I don't give a rat's ass what effect I have on Wolverine. I'm supposed to work with him? That's fine. I can do that. But if you're looking for someone to chill him out or rein him in, you're looking to the wrong girl. 'Cause my name ain't Kitty and I don't work that gig anymore."

We stood in the corridor and looked at each other. His warm television smile was gone. In its place was a harder smile. I actually liked this smile. This smile wasn't fake. This smile wasn't a tool he used for manipulation. This smile? It was respect. I couldn't help it; I smiled back. He laughed and shook his head. He looked kind of bemused.

"Good luck tomorrow, Jubilation," he said. "Find out what in God's name is going on out there."

"You that worried about it?" I asked on a hunch.

His face clouded again, as it had in the conference room. "Yeah. I am."

I nodded. "I'll do my best."

He bowed his head back and left me. Before he had gone far, he turned around again.

"I remember you from the old days, you know."

"No," I said simply. "I didn't know."

"Well, I do. I remember when you were Jubilee, the kid who made pretty fireworks and always stuck her neck out trying to take care of the Wolverine."

I just looked at him. What the hell do you say to that? He regarded me thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again.

"You know what?" he asked rhetorically. "I like you better now."

He turned and walked quickly away before I could think of a response, leaving me to wonder if I had just made a new best friend or a really serious enemy.

I pondered that question as I laid my hand on the panel to the side of Nick's door. It scanned my hand and, matching my biosignature, gave me entry. Nick's quarters were much like the rest of the Helicarrier – bare, military and technologically advanced. There was almost nothing that said anything about the man who slept there most of the time. There were no pictures. There were no knickknacks or baubles. There was a queen-sized bed. There was a dresser and an armoire. There was a desk with nothing on or in it but a permanently attached telephone. The only evidence of Nick was the empty ashtray on the dresser.

His bathroom wasn't much different. Bar soap and plainly scented shampoo in the shower. Scratchy military bathroom tissue by the toilet. Bar soap and nothing else on the sink. The medicine cabinet held that room's only indication of Nick's presence. There were prescription eye drops for his blind eye. An extra eye-patch, still in the packaging. There was cherry-flavored chapstick - an item that always made me giggle. I had noticed it the first time we kissed. The great and powerful Nick Fury had cherry lips. I'd mentioned it once, embarrassing him. It was the sort of item he considered a frivolous luxury.

Also in the cabinet lived the only evidence of me. Next to his toothbrush (large, firm) and toothpaste (stripey, mint), were my toothbrush (pink, electric) and toothpaste (cinnamon, whitening). It was as though my presence in his life was hidden and yet undeniably there. I kind of liked that.

I got ready for bed. Again.

More exhausted than ever, I slipped into Nick's bed in a SHIELD-friendly tank top and black pajama pants. His sheets were scratchier than the ones I had at home but I was way too tired to care. I tapped the lighting panel on the wall beside the bed to turn it off. Sinking down under the covers, I deeply, heavily slept.

Just past three, the smell of a lit cigar woke me again. It was late, even for Nick. He turned the bedside light on. I made a whiney noise and floppily waved my hand at him in the universal gesture of 'Dude, I was totally sleeping and that's way bright.'

"Sorry," Nick grunted. My eyes adjusted and I watched him as he changed out of his uniform and into thin, SHIELD sweatpants.

"Get everything worked out?" I asked.

"Not even close," he grumbled. He went into the bathroom without another word. I heard the water running.

The Colonel had stamped his cigar out in the ashtray on the dresser but the smell still lingered. I shut my eyes and breathed. As much as I had tried to excise Logan's influence from my life, there was still the little things. Those little automatic, uncontrollable responses to the most random things. The smell of cigar smoke. Of engine grease. Old leather. The sound of knives sharpening. The roar of a Harley. Dogs barking. I hated how comforting those things were. I hated how they made me feel. I hated it. But I still wanted it. I wanted the warmth they gave me. The happy feelings. I was like a crack baby.

The bed shifted. I opened my eyes to Nick leaning over me, bare-chested and bare-eyed, his hands on either side of my shoulders. I hadn't heard him come out of the bathroom. He smelled like cigars, ivory soap and stripey toothpaste.

"Hey," I breathed.

"Hey, yourself," he rumbled.

This close to my own, his bare face was a showcase of stress and anxiety. He looked ashen and exhausted. I could tell how unhappy - how pressured - he really was.

Nick sparkles when he's happy. I wonder how many people know that. Sometimes I think I must be the only one.

As irritated as I'd been with him earlier, now I just wanted to smooth the lines from his face. The patch was an undeniable part of his tough-as-nails image. Without it, he looked older and less sure of himself. It was a crutch. I preferred him without it. The immobile stare of his dead eye had never seemed creepy to me.

Reaching up, I smoothed my hand over the shock of white hair at his temple. He turned his head and pressed his cheek to my inner arm. I drew his head down to mine and kissed him softly. When he broke the kiss, he had a hint of a smile on his face. For a moment, I wondered if Captain America hadn't just been blowing smoke up my ass. Whatever.

"Y'know, for just a little thing," Nick said, placing a kiss on my collarbone before sliding into bed beside me. "You sure as hell take up a lot of space. You want to give up some room for the rest of us?"

"Make me." I stuck my tongue out at him. In one fluid motion, he scooped his left arm underneath me, rolled himself onto his back and me onto his chest. The man's got moves, I tell you.

"Well, remind me to never say that again," I reached over to turn out the light.

Nick caught my hand, examining the cross of Band-Aids on the back of it. "IV?"

"Decorative medical accessories," I replied. The stress lines around his eyes deepened into fissures.

"Docs don't think you're good to go."

I shrugged. "Makris is a pussy."

"Ain't just Makris. Gage thinks we're gonna get you killed."

"Gage is a pussy."

"I ain't sure I don't agree with him," he said, carefully avoiding looking at me by the continual study of my fascinating Band-Aids.

"You're a pussy," I grinned.

"Dammit, Jubilation," he snapped, dropping my hand. "This ain't a joke."

I sat up, straddling his torso, taken aback by the naked fear in his voice. Sometimes, I forgot that as hard as the whole relationship thing was for me, it was way harder for him. He had ninety years of love and war and loss under his belt. I only had nineteen. It had been a long time since he had let anyone in.

"No, it's not," I said quietly. "But it's the job, Nick. It's the job."

"I know it's the job," he snapped. "I been doing the goddamn job a hell of a lot longer than you have."

Shutting my eyes, I took a deep breath and willed my mouth to not say anything that I would regret. I felt Nick lay his hands on my thighs. He rubbed small circles on them with his thumbs. It was as much of an apology as I was ever going to get out of him.

"This has been a real pisser of a day," I heard him say.

"Pretty much," I replied and ventured to open my eyes again. Nick was quiet, frowning, worrying over something. I waited.

"I wouldn't have pulled you in, if Rogers hadn't insisted," he finally said.

"I know you wouldn't have."

"He's stubborn as fuck."

I smiled at him. "Capes. Can't live with 'em. Can't wage war against the super-powered forces of evil without 'em."

Not one to be deterred by snarky jokes, he shook his head. "I got some misgivings about all of this. I'd never send you out there alone with that psychopath."

"Wolverine." I wanted to tell Nick not to call him a that. Even after all of the time that had passed, my gut reaction was still to defend him. Captain America was wrong. I hadn't changed that much.

"After everything he's done lately..."

"It's not any worse than what he's always done," I interrupted.

"You don't know everything," he said, rubbing his face with his hand. A gesture of exhaustion.

"I know enough," I insisted, anyway. "You forget, I've seen him in action, up close and personal."

"Lady, I ain't never gonna forget that."

There it was. Our original sin of an argument. Logan. Nick didn't trust him. SHIELD needed him. I couldn't let him go.

My shoulders sagged. I felt drained - totally and completely devoid of the strength to fight with him over someone I hadn't even spoken to in years. Moving off of him, I curled my body between his side and his arm, resting my head on his shoulder.

"I don't want to argue with you about this, Nick," I said, looking up at him. "I have to go. You know I have to. If I had a choice, I wouldn't. But...I think this is important. I mean, Captain America seemed freaked out. I've never seen him freaked out before."

"Yeah, it's important." He rested his chin on the top of my head. "Don't mean I have to like it."

"You better be careful," I whispered. "People are gonna start saying you've gone soft."

"Only on you, doll." Wrapping his arm around me, he rested his hand on my shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

I kissed his chest. "You're a sweet man, Nick Fury."

He grunted. "I'm a mean old son-of-a-bitch and you know it."

"Yeah, but you're my mean old son-of-a-bitch and that's all that counts." I sleepily tucked my head against his side and breathed deeply.

He smelled liked cigars. He smelled like home.


	6. Chapter 6

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Six

I was floating.

My body was floating on a cool wind that touched me like a million little fingers, soothing and thrilling. I could hear voices calling to me, begging me to let go. To come with them. They lifted me up and took me away, away, away. I could smell the forests of Huairou, fresh and green. I could see the shimmering trees and, in them, the smiling faces of my ancestors. There was whispering and beautiful singing, all welcoming me. I knew I was home, finally, and I was so happy.

But I could still hear Nick screaming at me.

"Agent Lee," I could hear him screaming, so far away. "Get your ass back here, Agent. That's an order."

I didn't want to listen to him. I could feel the winds of the hills and the hands of my ancestors. I didn't want to go back.

But I could still hear him.

"You listen to me, Jubilation," and now I could hear the desperation in his voice. "I ain't ready, Jubilation. You hear me in there? I ain't ready for you to go yet."

I could feel the warmth of the sun and of the thousands of years that came before me. I wanted to feel that warmth forever.

But I couldn't leave Nick like that. I couldn't leave him when he sounded so sad. Not when it was me that was making him sad. I brushed the wind from me and pushed away from the place I knew I belonged. With a rushing, roaring sound, the peace was gone. It was all gone.

And there was the smell of burning hair and burning land and burning people and my skin was so hot, so hot, so hot and I could taste blood and I could smell blood and I couldn't breathe and there were red eyes all around me and I was shaking and rocking and I tried to open my eyes and they hurt so badly and I was in a transport and it was shaking and rocking and Nick was screaming hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on and there was a ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing...

I could hear ringing. Nick was groaning. I could feel his chest against my back and his arm slung over my waist. There were sheets and a bed and Nick and the ringing phone.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to slow my pounding pulse. I tried not to throw up. Nick untangled himself from me and the sheets and stumbled to the desk. Without him there to feel it, I let myself shudder.

"Yeah," I heard him answer the phone and then listen for a response. "Motherfucker. Right. I'll be right there. Just try to keep him occupied. I don't know how. Throw a side of beef at him. Or a blonde. That'll keep him happy."

By the time he had hung up the phone, I had myself mostly under control again. Mostly. I opened my eyes to Nick standing over me.

"You alright?" he asked.

I swallowed hard and hoped my voice wouldn't crack. "Yeah, totally. Just, you know, still feeling a little bit off. After yesterday."

"Go back to sleep," he said. He rubbed a hand over my head as he turned to go into the bathroom. "You got some time."

It was still early morning but there was no way I was going to sleep anymore. Sleep and I were in a fight. I had just broken up with sleep. I was totally talking shit about sleep to anyone who would listen. The nightmares weren't as frequent as they used to be, but they were still a total bitch. I threw the covers off and hopped out of bed. Stretching my misused muscles, I did a few yoga poses. My usually flexible limbs were stiff from the previous day's medical adventures and the broken rest. There was the hard twist of a muscle cramp in my shoulder and I hissed at the pain.

Still trying to shake off the cramp, I opened my overnight bag and pulled out a clean SHIELD field uniform. Can you believe they have to special order them for me? I'm literally the smallest person in the organization. All of my gear is special order. I'm, like, the Financial department's arch-nemesis. I pulled on a plain, white, wireless bra – pathetically purchased from the girl's department at Macy's, since I'm totally boob-challenged – and padded into the bathroom to use the sink before Nick commandeered it. Unfortunately, he was already out of the shower and standing front of the sink with a towel around his waist, lathering his face.

"Can I share?" I asked, hoisting myself up to sit on the counter next to the sink.

He frowned at me. "Thought you were gonna sleep."

I shrugged and pulled my toothbrush and toothpaste out of the cabinet. Nick was still looking down at me disapprovingly while I squeezed the gel onto the brush.

"Oh, relax, Grandma," I said. "I'm fine. Young, resilient and made of rubbery death defiance."

He snorted and picked up his razor. While I brushed my teeth enthusiastically, Nick grumpily shaved the stubble from his cheek. He went to tap his razor off in the sink at the same time I was spitting. I spat on his hand and he gave me a totally dirty look.

"Man," I said after rinsing my mouth with water. "I can totally see the merits of those double sink thingies. Way less grossness, for sure."

Nick glared at me and I gave him my brightest, sunniest, I'm-so-cute smile. Swinging my legs idly, I watched him. There's something totally gratifying about watching a man shave. Even after sharing a bed with him for a year, I still got kind of a thrill out of the man who was all mine doing man-type things. Nick worked his way across his face, shaving his chin and upper lip and then started in on his neck. I wiggled closer to him.

"So our honored guest is already here?" I asked him.

He grunted an affirmative. I wiggled myself between Nick and the sink.

"So you're kind of pressed for time?" I said and moved over until I was perched on the edge of the sink. Squeezing his hips gently with my knees, I leaned forward and nuzzled his warm, damp chest with my nose.

"Very," he replied.

I squeezed my knees a little bit more tightly and ran my fingertips along the edge of his towel, over the taut, hard-muscled skin of his abdomen. He made a slightly strangled-sounding, groaney noise.

"Pity," I said and pushed myself off of the sink.

"Wicked, wicked woman," he said, shaking his head at me disapprovingly.

"Nicholas, you have excellent self control," I called back as I left the bathroom. "A gold star for you."

Giggling to myself, I pulled on my combat pants and then sat cross-legged on the bed.

"How long do you think your meeting with Wolverine will be?" I called to him. "'Cause I gotta go round up my gear and if Isha's there he's going to totally talk my ear off about the, like, thumbnail-sized explosive he's working on or whatever."

Isha Varati wasn't much older than I was. The boy-genius had been plucked straight out of graduate school at MIT and, other than Gaff Levine, was the resident tech guru. Isha loved his work and loved showing off what he was working on. He insisted I give him detailed feedback and blow-by-blow reviews of the stuff I used in the field.

"Dunno," Nick replied, exiting the bathroom, clean-shaven and eye-patched. "Not too long, I hope."

I watched him dress in a clean uniform and then strap on all of his various side arms and other implements of destruction. I made a face. Though I could use pretty much any piece of SHIELD weaponry – and well, I might add – I still wasn't much of a gun kind of girl.

"Meet us on deck at oh-eight-hundred," Nick continued after thinking about it.

"Will that give you enough time to be as mean to him as humanly possible?" I asked, grinning.

Fully dressed, Nick crossed the floor to me. He took my hands and pulled me up until I was standing on the bed. Like that, I was almost as tall as he was.

"It'll have to be a rush job," he said, stroking my bare back.

"I'm sure you're just the man for it."

I wound my arms around his neck and looked up at him. His touch became lighter, raising goose bumps on my skin. Biting my lip, I pressed myself against him.

"Now who's wicked?" I purred.

Nick smiled a truly wicked smile and kissed me deeply with cherry lips.


	7. Chapter 7

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Seven

The first time Nick kissed me, I was crying.

It was two o'clock in the morning and I had just blazed down to his quarters in a fit of blind rage. Not ready to go back into the field, I had been back on desk duty for a week, analyzing threat assessments for Tactical. It was during the period of time when the nightmare were at their worst, frequent and heinously intense. The SHIELD shrink I was seeing three times a week was trying to slap Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on me – a total death sentence for my career. I was strung out and sleepless, still in a lot of pain and sick over the attention I was getting for Malaysia. I had thrown myself back into the job, working from early in the morning until late at night. What I'm saying here, is that I wasn't exactly at the top of my game.

Not caring if Nick fired me or demoted me or killed me or whatever, I stood outside his door and hit the buzzer over and over. When, sleepy, befuddled and angry, he finally answered the door, I shoved my fist up into his face. Clutched in my hand was a print-out of the most recently added name on Interpol's Red Notice list – the only other member of my team to make it out of Malaysia alive, Vatinius the necromancer.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I screamed, right there in the corridor.

Nick took the paper from me and looked it over. His blind eye was still and staring even while the other one tracked the text he read.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered.

"They can't do this to him," I yelled, not caring who could hear me. "You can't let them do this."

Apparently Nick did care, since he took my arm and pulled me into his room, closing the door behind us.

"Sit down, cool off," he said, indicating the desk chair.

"No," I said defiantly, poking Nick in the chest viciously. "I will not sit down. I will not cool off." I paced the room, ranting. "Are you really going to let Vatinius take the fall for the goddamn X-Men's fuck up? For SHIELD's fuck up? Hasn't he been through enough? He doesn't deserve this." My voice cracked. "Oh God, he doesn't deserve this."

My legs were shaking, I noticed. I didn't think I could hold my own weight up anymore. Sitting down heavily in the previously proffered chair, I covered my face with my hands. I thought how totally pathetic I was to go to the head of SHIELD in the middle of the night and freak out and then cry. I had avoided breaking down in front of anyone for a long, long time. Nick Fury wasn't really who I wanted to end that streak in front of. And yet, there I was, sitting in his quarters, crying. It didn't matter how much time he had spent in Medical while I was recovering. It didn't matter what Sasha said. I was totally weak, I thought, and he was going to kick my ass off of the Helicarrier. Imagine my surprise when Nick gently pulled my hands away from my face. Crouched in front of me, he held my hand in one of his while smoothing my hair back from my tear-stained face.

"He don't deserve this, Jubilation," Nick agreed softly. "Neither of you deserved this. And he's not gonna go down for Malaysia. I won't let that happen."

I wanted to believe him. Searching his face, I saw only sincerity, coupled with genuine regret. He looked uncharacteristically earnest. And then, abruptly, I was sure that everything Sasha had teased me about was true. That when she, sitting at my bedside in the med-lab where Nick had been just a few minutes before, had conspiratorially said, "You know, Juju, I have the strongest suspicion that the Colonel's in love with you", she had been totally, spot-on correct. Because Nick was looking at me so solemnly. And then he was pulling me toward him and his lips were on mine and he was kissing me. Nick Fury was kissing me and it didn't seem weird or creepy at all. It felt right. Like, in the grand scheme of things, Nick Fury was who I was supposed to be kissing.

And he tasted like cherries.

When I finally pulled away from him, I couldn't help smiling. Nick didn't smile back at me. He sparkled, though. He tasted like cherries and he sparkled.

It's funny, the things you remember.

The morning before I went to Beijing with Logan, I sat on the bed in Nick's quarters with my legs tucked underneath me and thought about that first night. I thought about that kiss and all of the kisses that came after it. I thought about how Nick had been true to his word. Vatinius, though he would never be free from the guilt and the terror that Malaysia had inflicted, had finally gone back to Italy, free from his obligations to SHIELD and from international warrants for his arrest. Nick hadn't let me down. Nick never let me down. Not really.

It didn't take me very long to finish getting ready. I'm pretty easy when I'm working. Makeup is pointless in a military setting; I always skipped it. I kept my stick-straight hair cut in an A-line. Growing it out had turned out to be a total hassle in the field. Keeping it bobbed short at the nape of my neck and then angled down toward my chin looked cute and still fit comfortably under my mask. With the uniform leeching my natural sense of style and tanker-style buckled boots removing the time-consuming necessity of lacing, I could get ready to go in an unnaturally short amount of time for a teenage girl.

Before I could leave the room, though, I had to make a call. Sitting at Nick's desk, I dialed out of the Helicarrier system and then dialed Sasha's mobile. If she found me incommunicado this weekend without some explanation, she would totally freak out. Stifling? Maybe. But it was nice having someone watching my back. I guess that's what friends are for, right?

Sasha didn't pick up the phone. Not surprising since it was a totally sadistic hour to call someone at on a Saturday morning. I left a message saying that I had been called into work and wouldn't be around. She'd find out all about it on Monday morning, anyway. Between the against-medical-advice disapproval of Doctor Makris and the certainty of Sasha's Human Resources organization snit, I already wasn't looking forward to coming back. I missed my footloose days of randomly taking off for parts unknown. Summers was a pussycat compared to the totally anal bureaucracy of SHIELD. Oy, with the paperwork, I tell you.

I stopped by the mess to grab something quick and sugary for breakfast and had oatmeal forced on me instead. Nosy doctors and the gullible kitchen staff who listen to them totally suck. I ate the oatmeal while holding my breath and making a face.

Next stop: Geekland! My stealth suit had been having some weirdo problems that I hoped Isha had been able to fix. When I saw who was already there, though, I almost turned around and left again. While doing the back-and-forth dance of indecision in the doorway, Isha spotted me from inside and I was stuck.

"What's up, Jubes?" he asked, sounding understandably confused.

Valentina de la Fontaine - Rogue-haired, former hotshot field agent turned administrative honcho – turned around slowly and fixed me with an arctic stare that would have made a polar bear shiver.

"Agent Lee," she greeted me icily.

"Hey," I replied, trying to go with a totally cool, _I don't even know that you hate me, that's how much I don't care about you_ thing. "How's it going, Contessa?"

She turned around again without answering me. Typical. Val totally, completely, one-hundred-percent loathed me. Not that I could really blame her. How would you feel if you were pushing forty and the dude you'd been involved with off and on for half of your life, suddenly hooked up full-time with some barely legal skank. Not that I'm skanky, you know. Because I'm not. I'm just looking at it from her point-of-view. I understood. Really, I did. But that didn't mean that I was good at dealing with her. Her bullshit pissed me off, which didn't make the situation any easier. I pretty much just avoided her whenever possible.

"I'm still waiting for Gaff," Val snapped at Isha.

"Yeah, sorry about that," he replied indifferently. "He's still in the lab. I'm sure he'll be out soon."

I swear, I could hear her teeth grinding.

"I don't have time for this," she said. "Tell him to come find me when he's done."

Val stalked out at a totally amazing speed, while studiously avoiding looking at me. Reason number ten infinity billion why workplace romance is stupid and bad and should never ever happen. Sometimes I think I might be functionally retarded.

"What was that about?" Isha asked me.

I shrugged. "Oh, you know. Office drama. Someone took her stapler. Whatever."

"You here for the suit?" he said, accepting my explanation without question.

I indicated that I was, in fact, there for the suit and not so much the freezer burn. Isha was bouncing up and down on his toes and grinning at me. I so knew this was going to happen.

"Come with me," he said.

Isha led me into one of the labs.

"Taa-daa!" he exclaimed, indicating an isolation chamber.

There was nothing in it.

"I don't know what chemicals you've been sniffing, Ish, but there is totally nothing in there," I said.

He held up one finger, indicating that I should be patient. I crossed my arms over my chest. Isha did a little, nothing-up-my-sleeves magician pantomime and then slid his hands into the chamber's attached safety gloves. Grasping at the empty air in the tank, he shook his hand. Something inside the tank shimmered in a wave. It was way cool.

"Whoa! What is that?" I asked.

"That is the prototype fabric for the new stealth suit," Isha beamed at me. "It chameleons an agent's surroundings. You can hide in plain sight with this stuff as long as don't move."

"Wow," I said, legitimately impressed.

"And it'll have all of the same capabilities as the suit you use now. Bulletproof. Biochemistry lock-in. Temperature regulation. Audio recording. Built in glide suit. And I'll even be able to make your rigs out of it, so you can carry concealed weaponry."

"Bitchin' technology, dude," I said and did the slow clap for him.

"Who's your daddy?" Isha asked with a wink and a smirk.

"You are totally my new daddy." I grinned at him. "So, when are the new suits going into production?"

Isha suddenly seemed much less impressed with himself.

"Um, yeah. I don't know. There are still a few kinks that need to be worked out."

"A few kinks?" I raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"  
"Well," Isha hedged.

"What kind of kinks?"

"The fabric, as it is now, sort of bonds to the skin. A little bit.

And it's impossible to get off. And it burns. A little bit. Actually, it burns a lot." He paused shamefully. "It's been a bad month for the bunnies."

I gaped at him, horrified. "Dude. That's weak."

"I know. I pushed for inmate testing but what are you gonna do?"

I shook my head, slowly. "Can I just get my stuff, please?"

Isha retrieved the case that held my stealth suit and all of its various accessories.

"I fixed the audio problems you were having," he said. "Just a glitch in the circuitry. No biggie. It should be fine now." Isha paused. "The news suits are going to be great once I figure the little glitches out, I swear."

"Yeah? Tell that to the bunnies," I said and glared at him on my way out the door.

With all of my gear, I went deck-side to meet Nick and Logan. I was early and there was no sign of them, yet. On deck, though, was one of SHIELD's modified Quinjets. In front of it was Tack Joyce, one of my two usual pilots. Crouched over a deck kit, he waved me over. Trotting down from the jet was my other pilot, Tack's twin brother, Jesse.

"What are you two doing?" I asked, approaching them. "I'm flying myself today."

"Deck duty," Jesse said.

"We're on it," Tack added.

Tack and Jesse were frequently relegated to deck duty. They had major insubordination issues. Had they not also been total hotshots, the Joyce brothers would have been rung out ages ago.

"She all set?" I asked, looking the jet over.

"Just about," Jesse replied.

"A couple of minor adjustments," Tack continued.

Tack stood. He clasped his hands together and shut his eyes. Jesse mimicked him. Totally identical, from their relatively short stature and wirey build to their strawberry blonde hair and round, ruddy faces, they looked almost angelic. Until they started talking, of course.

"Oh Lord," Tack began.

"I cannot believe you guys," I immediately interrupted. I knew exactly where this was going.

"Oh Lord," Tack repeated. "Please watch over this bird and help her come home safely."

"Lord," Jesse continued. "Please keep an especially close eye on the sanity of her pilot."

"I hate you both," I said glaring at them.

"Lord," Tack picked it up. "Please do not let Agent Lee do anything that will result in the destruction of this aircraft. She's a good ol' bird and she doesn't deserve to be blown up or shot down."

"Alright," I said. "I get it. Be nice to the equipment."

"Shhhh," Jesse shushed me.

Tack continued. "Or crushed or run into with a tank or ditched in the ocean or crashed in the Himalayas or stripped for parts by rebel insurgents. This we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen."

"Amen," Jesse parroted.

They both looked at me. Tack raised an eyebrow at me suggestively. I sighed.

"Amen," I muttered.

"We appreciate your enthusiasm," Jesse said and winked at me.

"I'm just glad we were around to draw your pre-flight," Tack said.

He reached out and ruffled my hair. I slapped his hand away.

"Yeah, I'll have to thank the Major for this delight," I said dryly. "What did you two do this time to get the deck again?"

They grinned twin smiles of satisfaction.

"Fly-by," Tack said.

"Definitely fly-by," Jesse rainman-ed.

"Oh my God," I said. "I cannot believe they haven't sacked you two yet."

"I can't believe it either," I heard from behind me.

I grinned over my shoulder at Nick. Tack and Jesse scrambled to attention.

"How are you enjoying deck duty?" Nick asked them.

"Delightful, as always, sir," Tack supplied.

"And disciplinary," Jesse interjected.

"Disciplinary, yes," Tack agreed. "As always, disciplinary."

Nick scowled and dismissed them. They saluted him sloppily and went back to work. Just two good ol' boys, never meaning no harm. I couldn't help laughing at them.

"Man," I said to Nick. "They are possibly the worst soldiers ever."

"Yes, they are," Nick agreed grimly.

"Good pilots though."

"Great pilots," he agreed again even more grimly.

Nick looked totally weary. He must have had a banner briefing with Logan. Speaking of which...

"Where's the Cape?" I asked.

"Fucked if I know," Nick replied.

I blinked. "You lost him?"

Nick glowered at me before rubbing one hand wearily over his face. Oh boy. I almost couldn't bring myself to ask him about it. Almost.

"How'd the meeting go?" I asked.

Putting a fresh cigar in his mouth, he didn't answer me.

"That well, huh?" I supplied.

"I don't like this," he replied around the cigar.

"I know you don't, chief. I'm not exactly stoked about it myself," I said.

You can't imagine the suckosity of the over-protective-boyfriend-slash-military-man-with-his-authority-threatened combination. I was used to the former. It was the main reason I reported to Major Gage and avoided Nick at work as much as I could. I was way less used to the latter. Usually, Nick, the man, could be assuaged with my patented kitten smile and my tongue down his throat. Men are pretty easy that way. I wasn't at all sure how to deal with Nick, the leader. Mostly, I just brushed it off, telling myself that his work problems were none of my business. Deep down inside, I knew that was a total cop-out. By the nature of our shared employer, my business was his business. It's just that the man I slept with and the Colonel I worked with often seemed like totally different people. It was tough to reconcile. So, I played Cleopatra and avoided it altogether.

"He asked Jessica Drew about you," Nick said in the middle of lighting up.

I shrugged. "Probably wanted to know if I can hold my own."

Nick grunted. Before I could say anything else, the man himself walked out onto the deck.

He was in costume - one that I hadn't seen before. It was gold with black stripey accents. There were extra-long, pointy ear-thingies on the cowl and tight little fringed booties.

He looked totally retarded.

"Was he wearing that in the meeting?" I asked, spellbound.

The Colonel shifted next to me. I looked up at him. Though his face was expressionless, he diligently avoided looking at me. Nick cleared his throat. I mimicked him. He puffed on his cigar. I poked him in the ribs.

"You wanna lose that finger, lady?" he growled at me, still staring straight ahead.

I grinned. "You totally want to laugh."

Nick was silent.

"Oh, you want to laugh soooo badly," I goaded him.

He chomped his cigar, hard.

"You know what he looks like?"

He took the cigar out of his mouth and examined it.

"A fuzzy, little bumble-bee," I whispered. For emphasis, I shook my head slowly, sadly. Nick's mouth twitched. I loved trying to make him laugh. A teensy smile was as far as he usually went. Once, I did get a brief but thorough belly laugh out of him upon the discovery that Nick Fury has ticklish knees. Following the knee tickling he somehow managed to, while lying in bed, throw me in a rice bale reversal which, of course, led to totally dirty things. I think it's probably impossible for naked Judo to result in anything else.

"I bet Emma had something to do with it," I continued. "She's always had a vicious sense of humor."

"Couldn't get me into one of them under penalty of death," he said.

I looked from Nick back to Logan. Looking at his stripey costume, I felt suddenly, inexplicably sad.

"You kinda have to feel sorry for Capes, you know?" I turned my head up again.

"Guess you do," he puffed out a cloud of smoke and finally looked down at me.

I could see in his face all of the things he wanted to give me but couldn't. Every unspoken declaration. Every dinner out. Every lazy Sunday afternoon. Every normal, mundane, safe day. And, just like that, I didn't feel so sad anymore. I suddenly felt much better about everything – the mission, where I was going, who I was going with. I would go and it would be business as usual. I would come back and Nick would still be here. Everything was going to be fine. I could have kissed him for giving me that confidence, that reassurance, but Logan had finally noticed us. He was crossing the hangar in that same old rolling gait.

"Fury," he acknowledged.

Nick nodded curtly. Logan looked down at me. Underneath the cowl, I couldn't read his face at all.

"Jubilation," he said. His voice softened almost imperceptibly.

"Wolverine," I replied formally.

"Well, ain't that sweet," Nick said. "We all know each other. Now why don't you get this show on the road."

Nick looked at me sourly. I tried to smile reassuringly at him. Yeah, not so much. He walked away brusquely, abandoning me with Logan and with no clue what to say. Deciding that evasion was always the best policy, I busied myself gathering up my gear. Finally, I looked around for the Colonel. He was talking intensely with a member of his office staff, while moving back toward the interior. I caught his eye. Nick bobbed his head at me in one brisk nod. It was _goodbye_, _good luck_ and _come home in one piece_, all in one gesture. I nodded back at him. From across the deck, we understood one another perfectly.

Turning to board the jet, I nearly ran into Logan, standing behind me like a brick wall. He was staring expressionlessly at the empty space where Nick had been. I couldn't fathom what he was thinking.

"Ready, dude?" I asked, brushing past him.

It seemed to take him a moment to register that I had spoken. Finally, he turned and followed me silently onto the jet, where Tack and Jesse were finishing their pre-flight inspection. I took the pilot's seat; Jesse made a whimpering sound.

Buckling myself in, I noticed Logan hovering behind me. I looked up at him. He had pulled the cowl back and was standing over me bare-faced. Looking at him, my throat constricted. Underneath the stupid costume, he was the same old Logan: messy, spiky hair; awful sideburns; craggy face; icy blue eyes. Just the same as he had always been.

"No offence, darlin'," he said. "But I've flown with you before, and that ain't really an experience I'd like to repeat."

Way to ruin a precious moment, jerk. Behind me, Jesse audibly gasped. With a mega-ton of effort, I kept my face smooth and unlined, evidencing nothing but calm passivity.

"You want to fly?" I asked him.

"If you don't mind," he answered.

I was Jack's sense of utter freakin' disbelief.

"Be my guest," I said and stood up again.

Tack and Jesse looked at each other and then back at me with twin expressions of shock.

"Really?" Jesse asked.

"Just like that?" Tack followed up.

I'm sure they had expected a huge argument from me. A gigantic explosion of temper. Instead, I had been as smooth as blown glass, totally seamless and unflinching. Definitely not my usual modus operandi. Still, if they wanted bitchy Jubes, I could totally oblige.

"Shove off, boys," I ordered.

They grinned and mockingly saluted me. The look I gave them clearly said that there would be some kind of heinous retribution in their future. They beat a hasty retreat.

Reseating myself in the cockpit's second chair, I ran through the preflight routine with the steady ease of practiced habit. Take-off never got old for me; I totally loved flying. With Logan piloting, I'd be able to get some work done and hit the ground running once we had arrived in Huairou. Still, I totally resented his jacking my fly time. And, for that, he would pay. When we were finally airborne and steady, I unbuckled my harness and crossed my legs underneath me. Leaning forward with my elbows on my knees, I smiled my biggest, friendliest, bubblegummiest smile at him.

"So," I said. "How have you been?"

I totally caught him off-guard.

"Fine," he finally said. "Busy."

"Yeah, me too," I agreed. "Busy, busy, busy like a busy little bumblebee."

He looked sharply at me. I smiled again.

"So," I said. "I hear you asked Agent Drew for all of the dirt on me."

And again, I caught him off-guard. I was so the big winner.

"Never figured Drew for a snitch," he finally grumbled.

"She wasn't really the best person to ask, you know," I said, ignoring his comment.

"And who would that have been?"

"Me, duh," I said and smiled a little more widely.

He looked at me again and, for just a moment, I knew exactly what he saw. There before him were flashing, colored lights and sweet, pink gum and hell-on-wheels. It was just a moment, though. A brief flash of the past. Of the way I used to be. And then it was gone, slipping away into the ocean of time that had passed since he last knew me.

"Drew's a good agent," I continued. "I never believed the stories about her, anyway. More and more, though, she's been doing Avengers work. You know that, though, I'm sure."

I paused for his agreement.

"Sure," he obliged.

"So, you see, I don't think she really knows what goes on here a lot of the time. She doesn't really know what I do."

I was baiting him. He must have known that I was baiting him. Still, he took it.

"And what is it that you do, darlin'?"

I leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially.

"That, Mister Howlett, is classified."

And I left him there, alone in the cockpit, with the assurance that I knew everything about him, while he knew almost nothing about me.


	8. Chapter 8

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Eight

I spent the trip at the back of the craft, working. The previous intel was sparse. There were a few snippets taken from communications within the Chinese government and some random spook chatter. Most alarming was an audio file of a phone call the main SHIELD phone bank had received--the panicked, nonsensical ravings of a deep cover agent in Madripoor. He was out of his mind, petrified and rambling, without even the presence of mind to directly contact his handler within SHIELD. In a mash of Japanese, Cantonese and English, he made little sense, repeating that the gwai - the ghost - would eat us. Over and over, the gwai. The gwai would eat us all. It was troubling. I could see why it had Captain America kind of freaked out. What would drive a dependable agent, a man trusted with keeping his head together while posing as Madripoor underworld scum, to that kind of hysteria?

I went though my catalogue of contacts--spooks and snitches, expats and friendly government officials--and picked out those I thought might be helpful. One in particular, I thought might know something. I loathed going to her, though. Getting her to give up anything was always a total bitch. At least it was Saturday night, so I knew just where I could find her. Unfortunately, just where I could find her was sure to be even more craptacular than actually having to talk to her. I sighed. My job was such a freakin' pain in the ass.

While I studied and planned, Logan flew the jet silently. As hardened as he was and as skilled in subterfuge, he hadn't been able to mask his surprise when I used his real name. It was a cheap shot that I hadn't been able to resist. My password clearance extended to his general personnel file, though not to the specifics of his activities. I had read it often. So often, in fact, that Nick had finally asked me why I didn't try to contact him again if I was so concerned. The question had caught me off guard. We were having dinner at my apartment - one of the rare downtimes that Nick actually hung out at my place - eating Chinese food on the couch in casual civvies and watching MSNBC. When I didn't answer him, he stuck his fork in the Kung Pao chicken - Nick hated chopsticks - and set the container on my coffee table. With Chris Matthews barking in the background, he told me a truth that I didn't want to hear.

"He ain't never asked about you. Never tried to access your file. He's had plenty of opportunities and he never has. Not once, Jubilation. Not once."

Nick watched me. I couldn't even look at him. My mouth tasted like dirt. The smell of my General Tso's made me want to puke. I forced my self to pick up the chopsticks and take a bite. Chew. Swallow. I looked up at him.

"What? You looking for some kind of sobbing girly hysterics?" I raised my chin and looked down my nose at him, a face I learned from the street hoods in L.A.. My tough face.

Nick snorted. "I know you better than that." He turned his attention back to the television set for a few minutes before saying, "He ain't worth it."

That was enough for me. I shoved my food onto the table and employed my best strategic decoy. Sliding my bare leg over his lap, I slithered along his body until I was straddling him. He ran his hands up my sides and curled his arms around me, drawing me flush against him. His mouth twisted into a sardonic smile, the only sort of smile he seemed to know, before capturing my lips with his. He had allowed me to change the subject and then he helped me to forget. Nick was good at that part.

I knew he hadn't meant to be cruel. He thought that was something I needed to hear. He was right, in a way.

I had seen Logan in person twice since White Day. The first time was on the Helicarrier when I was still a comparatively fresh-faced new recruit. He and Spiderwoman had walked right past me on the flight deck, so close that her arm had brushed mine. Deep in some crisis, he didn't acknowledge me. Didn't even notice me. I watched him pass and then cried myself sick in a bathroom.

The second time was Malaysia.

Goddamn Malaysia.

My team was supposed to go in for recon only, but the X-Men had already crashed the party and the situation was dire. We worked together like a well-oiled machine but all of the military training in the world couldn't save us. It wasn't long before Vatinius and I were the only ones left alive. We had been outnumbered and outgunned, battling super-villains in a fight we weren't even supposed to be in. From across the battlefield, I could see my old family: Rogue, using the powers she had leeched from Shiro; Cyke's red beams; Emma's glistening white body. And Logan. I could see Logan, slicing and dicing, in what I recognized as a berserker rage. In that moment, I couldn't help hating them for the shit they had dragged us into.

The fact that we, the only SHIELD team led by a necromancer, were fighting an army of the dead, was an irony that wasn't lost on me, even then. When it was just the two of us left, Vatinius rose above the smoke and spoke the sacred words that I knew he despised - the words that would make the dead rise again. I watched my teammates, my friends, reanimate. Burned beyond recognition, with missing limbs, bloodless, eviscerated, they fought beyond the constraints of life.

My memories after that are hazy. I snapped; something ancient and primeval took me over. I fought like I never had before, my body a weapon of destruction in a way it had never been trained to be. Slaughtering a path through the zombies, I fought through to the witch responsible for the massacre. Before she could notice me, I took her from behind. I remember yanking her long hair back and driving my knee into her kidney. I remember the look on her face when I slit her throat from ear to ear.

I remember my helmet being ripped off. I remember the smell of my hair as it burned. I remember the feeling of Jia Li's blood, sticky on my bare hands. I remember the hit that sent me flying across the jungle and I remember the sickening sound of my body hitting a tree. In the last moment before her control was gone, one of her red-eyed undead had picked me up and thrown me like a doll. And I knew I was done for.

I lay in the wreckage of the battlefield, battered beyond pain and bleeding out. I lay there dying and prayed that Logan would find me, help me, save me. I cried for him. I begged for him. As my body failed there, in the middle of the jungle, I finally realized that he had truly forgotten me. He had forgotten everything about me. Even my scent. It was then that I knew that everything we had was really gone. And I didn't care so much about living anymore.

So, for the second time in my life, I died.

And, for the second time in my life, I was resurrected, though not with healing mutant blood. This time it was with very human electricity and drugs and blood and breath. And Nick. Always, Nick.

Logan and I made awesome time to Huairou. It's kind of hard not to in a Quinjet.

When I felt the altitude drop, I went back to the cockpit and took my seat again. Logan was quiet still, his mouth set in a hard line, as he continued our decent. The land below us was obscured by darkness, but I knew where we were as though it were clear daylight. I could sense the trees, the mountain, the Wall.

Huairou changed me. Every time I went there, I felt it. The closer I got, the more it came over me, until I hardly felt like Jubilation Lee anymore. Was it the tombs? The temple? The magic? I didn't know. Maybe it was just being there in the land that, for more than a millennium, my ancestors had called home that made me feel less like myself and more like them. By the time Logan had set us down at the preset coordinates, I felt like I had been eaten alive. It sounds terrible, but, honestly, it wasn't. In Huairou, I felt more powerful and in control than I had in years.

We disembarked in an empty clearing at the foot of a mountain. The fog was thick and soupy around us, making it hard to see more than a few feet away.

"This the right place?" Logan asked me. He sounded confused. I didn't blame him.

Slinging my bags over my shoulder, I took a deep breath and held out my hand to him. He balked, looking at my offered palm as though the concept of taking someone's hand was totally foreign to him.

"I don't have cooties, Wolverine," I said coolly.

He finally picked up my hand, though he looked uneasy doing it. His mammoth paw dwarfed my own child-like one. I grasped it as firmly as I could and led him forward. We walked toward the mountains, the mists swirling and thickening around us, deepening until the terrain was totally hidden. I sensed Logan's hesitation as the fog blocked his keen senses, leaving him entirely at the mercy of the magic. Feeling him tense, claws trembling beneath the muscle and skin, I gave his hand what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze and pulled him onward. To my relief he relaxed, just a little bit, and let me guide him.

I walked blindly, at an easy pace, trusting the magic to deliver us safely. And, like always, it did. The mists parted and there before us was the outer courtyard of my ancestral home. My own private Avalon. Logan wouldn't have been able to reach the compound on his own. A combination of ancient magic and stealth technology made the siheyuan invisible and inaccessible to outsiders. My aunt had spent twenty years converting the land into a refuge for the modern assassin.

"Pretty fancy tricks for a SHIELD safe-house," Logan said.

The sound of his voice reminded me that I was still holding his hand. I jerked away from him.

"It's not SHIELD," I said. "It's mine."

Logan looked surprised again. Either he was really slipping or I had thrown him enough that he couldn't even try to cover it up. I was guessing it was me. And, honestly, I got a decent amount of satisfaction out of that. Obviously, he hadn't cared enough to try to keep up with me after White Day. So, let him wonder about me now. Leaving him there to do just that, I started across the courtyard.

A light breeze drifted through the pavilions and across the courtyard, rustling the balloon flowers and night-blooming lilies that grew thickly along the walkways. They brushed my legs as I walked, welcoming me home. At the guoting, I stopped and looked back. Logan still stood where I had disengaged from him.   
"Are you, like, coming, or what?" I called to him.

He broke out of his baffled reverie and followed the path I had taken. The flowers didn't touch him the way they did me. Though it seemed to leave him alone, the wind flipped my hair and licked my face, teasingly. My home loved me. Only the moonlight seemed to play with him. It softened him, blurring the new costume he wore and illuminating the old, familiar duffel bag he carried. Almost, just almost, I could pretend that nothing had changed. I was still a firecracker and he was still my hero.

Almost.

The inner courtyard was less whimsical than the outer one. Lit by lamps, entirely paved with stone and surrounded by the three houses that completed the quadrangle, there was no way I could forget who we really were. Logan followed me past the statuary but, when we got to the Huabaio, he stopped and looked up at the tall totem.

"Gift from Emperor Qin Shi Huang," I said, stopping with him.

"Good friend of yours?" he asked totally flippantly.

I ignored his tone. "My family worked for the emperors of the Qin Dynasty."

"That so? Doing what?"

I looked up at the Huabaio, that gift of good faith from a faithless tyrant. "It turns out that the family didn't disown my aunt for being too different. She was actually too close to our ancestry for them to deal."

I turned and walked toward the house again.

"Your clan were..." I heard him start behind me.

"Assassins," I finished for him. "Like, whodathunkit, right?"


	9. Chapter 9

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Nine

Mister Hu greeted me just inside the door of the inner hall. We bowed to each other, that slight inclination of familiarity and respect. Ancient and wizened, he was traditionally dressed in white – the color of Autumn. I always felt like a total anachronism next to him and, really, in the house itself. Like I had been transplanted from the Twenty-First Century into an unfamiliar time and life that, nevertheless, I recognized on a basal level.

Hope hadn't really changed any of the furnishings during her remodeling. Which, Mister Hu had once informed me, was a pretty smart decision. Everything on the grounds was part of its protection, accumulated for over a thousand years. A fire crackled cozily in the fireplace, casting shadows on the whitewashed walls. Centuries old cabinets made of darkly lacquered wood stood out in stark contrast against the walls. The cabinets were lined with antiquities and curiosities, the walls with silkscreen depictions of the totally violent exploits of my ancestors.

Mister Hu looked like he belonged there way more than I did. He had lived there since he was a boy, apprenticed to the previous caretaker. Mister Hu's own apprentice, Zeng, was in his forties. The last time I had been there, Mister Hu had said that they were getting ready to take on a boy from the village. It was strange to think that there would be three generations of men caring for my home. Caring for me.

"Ni hao, ma?" Mister Hu greeted me, taking my hands in his.

When his skin touched mine, he breathed in sharply and looked at me critically. Clucking over me with disapproval, he took my chin in one of his softly wrinkled hands. His other hand smoothed over my forehead, fluttering like a butterfly over my eyes, assessing the abuse my body had recently taken. All of the compound's caretakers had been chosen for their natural aptitude for ancient magic. Mister Hu, however, had a talent for healing that went above and beyond the average magician.

"What have you done?" he asked me in Mandarin.

"I was poisoned," I answered in the same. "I'm fine, though. Totally healthy."

Mister Hu looked in each of my eyes, tugging at the skin around them to look at the membranes. He opened my mouth and sniffed my breath.

Finally, he shook his head. "The poison is still there. Your doctors have done a very poor job caring for you."

I smiled. "Of course, they could never take care of me as well as you."

He patted my cheek, fondly. "You will have black rice and a special tea. All will be well again, soon enough."

I felt better already.

"And who is this?" Mister Hu asked, looking over my shoulder.

Logan had, apparently, abandoned the Hubaio and found his way inside. He was behind me with his cowl pulled back, examining a painting of my great-great-infinity-great-grandmother throwing a very fat man in fancy red robes off of a mountain. I had always assumed that was supposed to be, like, symbolic or something.

"This is Wolverine," I answered Mister Hu. "He's a colleague of mine."

Hu bowed to Logan. "We will see to it that he is made comfortable in the East room."

Logan bowed to Mister Hu and spoke to him in Mandarin. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"It is my pleasure to serve you," he answered. "And perhaps in return you can keep those with poisons away from Jubilation."

"Poisons?" he asked, his bushy eyebrows raised.

I shrugged. "Someone tried to kill me yesterday. Big whoop."

"Who?"

"Don't know," I said. "Don't care."

That was a total lie, of course. Of course I cared. I just didn't have the time or the headspace to really work myself up about it. Besides, it was less that someone was trying to off me and more that someone was trying to off me in my own 'hood. Logan didn't need to know that, though. He seemed to accept my general whatever-ness about my place on someone's hit list. That's everyday kind of stuff when you're Wolverine. Goody for him. It's still totally lame when you're Jubilation Lee.

"Look," I said to Logan. "I have to leave for the city soon. I don't know what your plans are, but you're welcome to anything you need here." Turning to Mister Hu, I spoke in Mandarin. "Will you ask Zeng to see to anything Wolverine might need?"

Mister Hu bowed his head in agreement.

"Alright, then," I said to Logan. "Good luck tonight. I'll see you in the morning. We can compare notes and figure out where to go from there."

I left Logan, who seemed to have gotten his bearings back enough to look surly, with Mister Hu.

On the other side of the inner hall was the last courtyard, at the center of which stood an enormous Lacebark Elm. Beyond the tree were my chambers – one large room flanked on the east and west by two smaller rooms. I called them mine but, really, they were my aunt's. I hadn't changed anything in them. Hadn't even gotten rid of her clothing. Mostly because it didn't seem right to just ditch Hope's stuff after she had left me everything she owned. Plus, some of the smaller sizes actually fit me.

There was an enormous marriage bed, centuries old, on one side of the room. I knew from previous experience that the bedding would be warm and soft, smelling faintly of clove and cypress. It was so tempting to just crawl in, pull the curtains shut behind me and ignore the world outside of the fortress my family had built. It was beyond human capacity for tiredness to be as exhausted as I was. This was a special tired made just for me. I ached with fatigue. I wanted to live in that bed for the rest of forever and never move again. The mega-tired wasn't exactly an unfamiliar feeling but it was definitely not a welcome one. Resisting the allure of bed, I stripped out of my uniform down to skin and pulled on a white silk robe.

In the modernized bathroom, the lights were harshly unforgiving. I washed my face, surveying how much work I was going to need. A lot, it turned out. If heroin-chic ever made a comeback, I would have been stylin'. I looked like I had been on a three-day smack bender, the circles under my eyes were so dark. Even with foundation and a mondo amount of stick concealer, I looked a little bit battered. Oh well. At least, where I was going, the lighting would almost certainly be low.

I ringed my eyes with Kohl and thick black mascara and spread carbon black eye shadow over my lids. I optioned for nothing on my lips but a little bit of pale pink gloss. After smoothing my short, flat hair and spraying it, I left the bathroom to look for something more appropriate to wear out.

My own clothing was stored in a huge trunk and an even huger cabinet. All of my old stuff - everything that had made it from New York to Snow Valley to L.A., to Europe, back to L.A., back to New York and then L.A. and then back to New York again – had been sent to Huairou.

For five years of accumulated crap, you'd think there would have been more of it. But when your shit's constantly getting blown up, you tend to not hold onto quite so much.

What I did have was a lot of totally useless team stuff that I would never ever use again. Sentimental value, though, I guess. I still had my totally gross blue and yellow X-Men uniform. My X-Corps clothes hung next to my Gen X duds. Next to those was my old yellow slicker.

I paused over it while I was looking for something more suitable to wear out that night. It had seen better days. Permanently stained with blood and grime, I had mended it so many times that it looked like Franken-coat. That thing had been a total safety blanket for me. It had totally been my binky. Even then, I still kind of felt like putting it on again. Instead, though, I moved on to an ankle-length fitted jacket in midnight blue silk. It was totally cute and I could hide a gun underneath it if I needed to. It's sad how often my fashion choices are dictated by the need for concealed weaponry.

While I was in the bathroom, Mister Zeng had brought me plain, black rice and tea that tasted like snot. Someday, I'm going to become a missionary and bring the mystic healing powers of Diet Coke to the East. I choked down the rice while looking for something to wear with the jacket. A black silk mini-dress won out over a red halter dress. The top was strapless and tight while the bottom had side-slits, providing maximum leg exposure while allowing for flipping and kicking. In other words, smokin' hot and ready for spy action. Sydney Bristow ain't got nothing on me.

I had just finished pouring myself into it when there was a knock on my door. Padding over in bare feet, I opened the door to find Logan waiting outside.

"I planned on going with you," he said as soon as I opened the door.

I blinked. "What?"

He deftly moved past me through the open door and into the room. Have I mentioned that I hate that ninja shit? Well, I do.

"Sure," I muttered. "Why don't you come in."

I shut the door behind him. Standing in the middle of the room, he surveyed it with a bizarre intensity. Since I left him with Mister Hu, he had taken off his uniform and put on civvies. Logan's fashion sense hadn't changed at all. He still looked like a Canadian cowboy-lumberjack in jeans, boots, a red flannel shirt and a leather jacket. And the hat. Always with the hat.

"What did you say?" I asked him.

"You said before that you didn't know what I had planned. I planned on going with you," he repeated.

"Don't you have, like, some skulls to crack or something?"

"Nope. This ain't my city."

"You can't come with me," I said, putting my hands on my hips.

"You gotta have someone there to watch your back," Logan insisted.

"Except I really, really don't."

He gave me a totally skeptical, _didn't you just get shot with a dart_ look. Fucker! I hate that look; it makes me cranky.

"Dude," I bitched at him. "I'm looking for an informant. I can't bring an entourage with me."

"You ain't. You're bringing me."

His face was stonily set in that jackass stubborn way that I remembered way too well. I knew how it would go down. If I didn't bring him with me willingly, he would only crash the party. Either way, my job was going to be more difficult. How much more was up to me.

I sighed. "You have to follow my lead."

He smirked triumphantly. "Sure."

"I'm serious. This is not your scene."

Hell, this wasn't even my scene. The kind of people whose scene it was were total pervs. The club was not my favorite place to go trolling for info.

"You cannot freak out and go all stabby," I continued.

"Hey, I got some self-control, darlin'."

"Oh, really? Have you changed that much?"

He snorted. "Why not? You have."

Logan made having changed sound like a disease. Like I caught the growing up bug.

"Oh, blow me, Wolverine," I snapped at him.

He snorted. I scowled.

"I'm almost ready," I said. "Why don't meet me outside?"

He sat down in a carved, wooden chair.

I looked at him in disbelief. "Or you could just stay right here."

"That's what I was thinking."

I made a frustrated noise. He just smirked again. Totally insufferable. Deciding to just ignore him, I sat down in chair next to him to put my boots on. Logan watched me zip the black leather up to my knees.

"So where're we going?" he asked.

"A club called Rui. Heard of it?"

"Nope."

"Good. It's the regular hangout of a contact of mine. Keep that in mind, okay? I am there to get information. You are there to do exactly what I tell you to."

I got up to finish getting ready. I hadn't made it more than a few steps when I felt him come up behind me, totally freaking me out. My first impulse was to defend, but he grabbed my arm and held me before I could turn. Staying very still, I tried to squash the panicky nausea that was welling up in my throat.

"What's this?" he asked, his voice deep and gravely.

"Wh-what?" I stuttered.

He placed his hand on my back, over my left shoulder blade. Realizing what he was looking at, I relaxed a little bit.

"Bullet scar."

Logan breathed in sharply. "How?"

He sounded weird and choked.

I tried to shrug but he was holding my arm too tightly. "Zigged when I should've zagged. It's fine."

I hoped that was it. Instead of letting me go, though, he pulled me closer to him. I felt him rest his nose on the top of my head and inhale deeply.

He was sniffing my freakin' hair.

"What," I began very slowly. "Are you doing?"

He let go of my arm. I turned around. He was backing away from me with a totally strange look on his face.

"Nothing," he finally answered. "It's...nothing."

Nick was right. This was a complete clusterfuck. I watched Logan warily until he sat down again, heavily. When I had reassured myself enough that he didn't seem like he was going to leap up again, I turned around and rummaged through the bag I had brought with me. In a small plastic case were my contact lenses.

"When'd you start wearing glasses?" Logan asked me.

I jumped at the sound of his voice. Breathing deeply, I steadied my rattled nerves and my shaking hands.

"I didn't," I said, carefully placing the lens carefully over my eyeball and magically turning blue into brown. "They're color contacts. Can't risk getting recognized by my eyes while I'm pretending to be someone else."

Logan accepted my explanation quietly. I balanced the other lens on one finger and positioned it over my eye.

"So, you and Fury, huh?"

I almost poked my eye out.

"What?" I sputtered, whirling around.

"Didn't believe it before," he continued. "People talked and I didn't believe it." He paused. "I can smell him on you."

I gasped. "Dude. Ew, much?"

"Yeah, that's about how I feel about it."

Logan dropped his chin to his chest. The atmosphere in the room was totally unbearable. I felt tense and tightly coiled, like a thick metal spring. When he finally spoke again, his voice was low, quiet and dangerous.

"I been around Nick Fury a long time. You know that. And you know some of the stories. But you don't know all of it. You don't really know the shit he does."

"I know that he does what he has to." My voice sounded foreign and empty.

"No, he does what he thinks he has to. There's a difference, darlin'."

He looked up at me. There was a disparaging superiority in his stare that pierced me. I felt hollowed out, my chest cavernous. I leaned against a cabinet as though I couldn't stand up on my own. Something stirred deep in the pit of my stomach and the emptiness began to fill with a white-hot liquid sensation, expanding up and up. It was rage, so strong I could taste it.

I crossed the room to him. Standing over him with my fists clenched by my sides, I shook with anger. He looked up at me with what seemed like a cross between that superiority and disbelief. I had to remind myself that punching him in the face would hurt me and not him.

"Shut up," I spat each word out like they were bitterly flavored. "You don't get to judge him. You don't get to judge me. Not anymore."

He bowed his head to his chest again. "You're wrong darlin'. That's all I get to do, now."

With his words, I realized that what I had taken for superiority wasn't really that at all.

It was sadness. Terrible, terrible sadness.


	10. Chapter 10

**Note:** This, dear readers, is where the warnings come in. The rating is still Teen and I firmly believe that, if it were a movie, it wouldn't warrant more than a PG-13. There isn't anything too terribly graphic. However, Chapter Ten does have action, violence and some rather low-key sexiness. If you find any of that sort offensive, I'd suggest that you cease and desist on this particular story right now.

**Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth**

**Chapter Ten**

The drive into the city should have taken over an hour. In Hope's Boxster, I made it in forty-five minutes. It still seemed totally unbearably long. The two-seated convertible was pretty close quarters, even with the top down. Logan was just a silent lump next to me, hunched toward the door with his arms crossed. I was super-grateful that he didn't want to continue where he had left off. After his total weird-out in my room, I had grabbed my jacket and bolted, eager to get away from him and totally unable to do so. There was no way I could deal with both him and work, so I needed to compartmentalize. Work first and then, later, him. Maybe. If I had to.

As I drove, I chewed my lip and worried it over. I shouldn't have been so antagonistic. I shouldn't have said anything about his life or mine. It would have been better if I had just kept my mouth shut. This was supposed to be a professional relationship. It would be best if I could just think of him as a Cape that I had to work with. I needed to stop thinking of him as my friend. My family. My touchstone. He hadn't been any of those things for a long time. He hadn't wanted to be, obviously. Since White Day, I hadn't been his teammate or his partner or his equal. Without my powers, I was just another human.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. Logan looked over at me, curiously. He opened his mouth as if to say something. I scowled at him and he quickly looked away again. Good. I spent the rest of the drive trying to think only about work and work and more work.

We were in the city before Logan tried again. I had parked the car and was checking my makeup and smoothing my hair in the rearview mirror when he finally spoke.

"You met the kid yet?" he asked me.

I was confused.

"Who?" I asked.

"Fury's kid. You met him?"

"Scorpio? No, I haven't."

Logan squinted at me under the brim of his hat. He was kind of vicious looking, that way. Cold. I didn't so much like being on the receiving end of that stare.

"What? Fury doesn't want him to meet his new mommy?"

Apparently, we weren't working. Apparently, we were still having a thing. A bitchy thing. Which was, incidentally, totally the last thing I wanted to be doing.

"I am not Scorpio's new mommy," I said. "He's, like, way older than I am."

Logan looked totally smug, like he had been trying to get me to admit something like that.

"Glad you noticed," he sniped.

"Oh my God."

I got out of the car, whirling the bottom of my jacket out of the way, and slammed the door harder than I should have. Logan was much easier on the passenger side. We met next to the front grill. In heeled boots, I was almost the same height as he was. It would have been a pleasant deviation from the norm had I not wished he were as far away from me as the time-space continuum would allow. There's never an alternate dimension around when you need one.

We stood toe-to-toe in front of the car. I posed as aggressively as I knew how to, shoulders back, hands on hips and chin jutting up at him. He, on the other hand, looked imposing without even trying. While his girth could eat mine for breakfast, there was no way I was backing down.

"Remember what I said before about doing exactly what I tell you to? This is where that starts. Got it, dude?"

"Sure."

He sounded totally insincere.

"I'm not kidding," I hissed. "If you fuck something up for me here, I will fuck you up."

He smirked, looking totally amused.

"Fine," I huffed. "I will seriously think about what I would do if I could fuck you up. Whatever. Just try to keep your claws to yourself, okay?"

"I got that part, Jubes."

I shook my head, impatiently. "My name is Gong Jing."

I took Logan's left hand in my right, totally aware that this was the second time I'd held his hand that night. It seemed a little bit gratuitous, particularly in light of how uncomfortable and unpleasant our new working relationship was. I felt the tight ache of dread, already thinking that the night was probably going to get much worse before it got better.

"They know me here," I continued. "They know me as Jing, the bored, rich brat. You," I squeezed his hand for emphasis, "are my date. So, try to pretend that you like me or, at the very least, that you think I'm hot."

I started off toward the club, pulling him after me, before he could think of anything mean to say.

Rui was a private, after-hours club near the river. Totally unmarked, the entrance was tucked deeply in an alley. There were two bouncers on the door like bookends. I knew both of them. They were muscular blonde men -- imports from the club owner's native Austria. I squared my shoulders, pouted my lips and turned on the strut, placing my steps directly front of each other, one after another, like a wannabe supermodel.

"Ni hao, Jing," the blonde bouncer on the left greeted me in accented Mandarin.

Stopping in front of them, I let go of Logan's hand. He put his arm around my waist. Good boy. Nice and friendly-like. I pressed myself against Logan's side and slowly trailed my index finger down his cheek.

"Baby," I replied to the bouncer's greeting in English accented with Mandarin and Swiss boarding school. "Does it look like I wanna talk Chink tonight?"

Logan didn't even flinch. Instead, he slid his hand conspicuously down my back and squeezed my ass. Great. I fought the urge to knee him in the groin – my natural response when some dude copped a feel. I wanted him to play along and he was playing along. That was a good thing.

The bouncers both laughed. The one on the left opened the door. I pushed Logan in the door ahead of me, blowing kisses to the Austrians.

Rui was an otherworldly experience. From the moment you walked in the door, it was as if the club itself wanted to seduce you. The walls were upholstered in red silk brocade. The furnishings were black velvet. There was a dance floor in the middle of the club, though the only music they played was hushed, moody trip-hop meant for writhing rather than bustin' a move. Softly lit in reds and oranges, Rui was a paradise for the lusty, the gluttonous and the greedy.

In the very early morning in was crowded with Beijing's elite deviants. Everyone there was very beautiful or very powerful or very rich. I sometimes wondered how I had ever managed to talk myself into the place. Behold, the power of the 'tude.

I wound my arm through Logan's, even though he hadn't offered it. He looked at me warily. In response, I pressed a kiss to his cheek and smiled what I hoped was a totally alluring smile. He was fully wrongfooting me at a time when I couldn't afford to be off my game. I took two seconds to pull myself together and then moved on into the depths of the club.

I had known going in that Logan would be a point of interest. Rui didn't get a whole lot of the burly John Wayne type. Many women and more than a few men smiled welcomingly at us. I blew kisses to those I knew. Two very young girls giggled to each other and checked him out as we passed. I swear, they couldn't have been more than fifteen. What the hell were they doing in a joint like this? Of course, I'd gotten enough jailbait attention here, myself, to already know the answer to that. This place. These people. They made me sick.

Moving through the club, I located my informant. The woman I knew only as Monica was reclining, cat-like, on a velvet lounge. Surrounded by admirers, she seemed like she was in her element, reveling in the attention. To my more critical eye, Monica seemed different than she normally was. She was tense. Nervous.

There was a booth across the fairly empty dance floor from her. I gave Logan a little shove toward it. He pulled his jacket off as he slid in behind the narrow table. The sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled up, displaying impressively muscular forearms. I snorted. That was going to get some attention. I crawled in after him on my hands and knees, never taking my eyes off of him. Settling on the soft velvet of the booth, I nudged his arm so that I could lean against his side. He obligingly wrapped the arm around me. I thanked him by lightly stroking his collar bones, my fingertips trailed up and down his chest. Logan shot me a totally filthy look. I couldn't help smiling smugly back.

Our cocktail waitress was Thai and had had some serious work done. Her lips were over-inflated and her breasts were huge, high and perfectly round. Still, it looked like good work. Rui didn't hire chop-jobs. Or blushing virgins. She placed both palms flat on the table, her arms spread wider than shoulder width, and leaned into us. The low-cut cocktail dress she wore showcased her impressive cleavage for full appreciation.

"Don't get too distracted," I whispered very softly in Logan's ear, trusting his excellent hearing to pick it up over the music.

And then I bit his neck, just under his ear, for emphasis more than show. He grabbed the back of my neck hard enough to hurt and turned my own ear toward his mouth.

"Don't sweat it," he hissed into my ear. "I ain't into plastic."

I pulled away from him, grazing on his wrist with sharp teeth as I turned my head toward the waitress.

"Grey Goose martini, dirty," I ordered, my accent back in place. "My charming friend will have some kind of ghastly American beer."

I gestured languidly toward where Monica was holding court.

"And to the pretty, pretty princess, something unbearably sweet and unbelievably expensive, with my compliments."

I tucked a folded Benjamin into the waitress's shirt, stroking my fingertips along her cleavage. She bit her lower lip seductively and when she walked away there was a little extra wiggle in her walk. She was a good performer; she deserved the tip. Besides, throwing SHIELD's cash around made me feel like slightly less of a creep for being there at all.

Logan got my attention again by nipping at my jaw-line with little, stinging bites before pressing his lips to the tender skin next to my ear.

"That your informant?" he asked.

The heat of his breath on my skin sent a tremor up my spine and through my shoulders. I nodded, hoping he hadn't noticed. Leaning into him, I braced myself with my hand on his thigh and nuzzled my cheek against his lips.

He snorted. "Real interesting life you got here, darlin'."

My jaw clenched. I squeezed his thigh as hard as I could and wished that, for once in my life, I could cause him pain or anguish or even just discomfort instead him doing it to me. But he just chuckled lightly against my skin. Again, I was forced to control a shiver and wonder if he had noticed.

Work, Jubilation. Work.

I forced myself to concentrate on the club rather than the man next to me. The waitress was delivering my drink to Monica who, in turn, was totally freaked out. When the waitress pointed me out to Monica, I waggled my fingers at her. She looked strangely relieved. And then she reacted more like I had expected her to. As in, whorey. Monica dipped her middle finger in the heinous-looking drink and then sucked her finger clean. Hopefully no one noticed that I was totally unsuccessful in avoiding rolling my eyes. I so hate undercover work.

As I had expected, once she had seen me, she extricated herself from her friends and moved onto the dance floor, beckoning to me seductively. I sighed and tried not to look chagrined.

I turned my head and nibbled at Logan's ear.

"Stay here," I hissed. "I mean it. Do not move from this location no matter what happens."

He agreed with a swift jerk of his head.

In a long white cheongsam with obscenely high slits up the sides, Monica was a stone cold fox. Silver blonde and deeply tanned, she was one of those rare petite women who are lucky enough to also have long legs. She had the kind of body that I could never ever achieve by any means. With large breasts and lush hips, there wasn't an imperfect bit of her. Her big eyes shone under the lights and her smile was perfect, blue-white and gleaming. Capped, I was sure, to compensate for bad British teeth.

Monica, while only a few inches taller than I was, wore some wicked stilettos. My head just barely leveled with her chin. She reached for me, her greedy hands sliding down my sides to devour my hips. Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself. I ran my own hands up her shoulders and around her neck, pulling her lips down to my own. She kissed me hungrily but, on the small of my back, her hands shook. I had never seen her rattled like this. Monica was profoundly freaked out.

She turned me around forcefully and pressed herself to my back. Stroking my thighs, she moved her hands up and grasped my head. Turned it, she bared my neck. As she ran her tongue from my collar bone to my earlobe, I realized what she was really up to. She had pointed my head toward the bar where two men - one burly white dude, one smaller and Chinese – pretended not to watch us.

It wasn't that they hadn't noticed us. They were keeping an eye on us while making it seem as though they hadn't seen us at all. Odd. Rui wasn't exactly known for its gentility. If someone wanted to watch, that was exactly what they did. There were no pretenses. No charades. What were they up to? I thought about it while Monica slid her hands down my stomach and underneath my dress.

Okay. Two men. Not looking at us. On purpose. Hmmm. Yeah, they were definitely tailing one of us. Since they didn't seem concerned with Logan, my money was on it being Monica they were after.

That definitely made things more interesting.

I grabbed Monica's hand from where it had been moving much too far up my inner thigh and led her back to Logan, gesturing him out of the booth. He got up, shrugging his coat back on. Without letting go of Monica, I threw myself against him and nuzzled his face near his ear.

"She's being followed by two thugs at the bar. Get her outside."

"What about you?" he said, the proximity of his lips adding an extra thrill to the adrenaline rush that I already had.

"Just keep her safe. I'll be right behind you."

Transferring Monica's hand to his, I gave him a little nod and turned toward the bar. I hoped that what I had said was the truth. I couldn't be sure, though, since I was about to do something monumentally stupid.

As I neared the bar, the two guys who had been watching Monica noticed that she was on her way out the door and made to follow her. So, I took the course of action that I had decided upon and flung myself into them in a tangle of arms and legs.

There was a confused scuffle. One of them, removing himself from the mess I had created tried to grab me by my shoulders. I shrieked with over-embellished outrage. Winding up, I slapped him as hard as I could.

"Get your filthy hands off of me," I screamed.

A horde of bouncers descended upon them and it was totally on. A shout went up across the club as the men tried desperately to get away from security. I slipped away in the melee, well aware that I had just started a bar brawl in one of the most exclusive clubs in Beijing.

I hoped they wrecked the slime-pit.

Logan and Monica had been stopped by the bouncers outside of the club. I was happy to see that Logan had restrained himself and his claws were still safely sheathed.

When I opened the door, the din of shouting and breaking glass inside the club followed me out. One of the bouncers swore in surprise and rushed inside. The other, however, just appraised me coldly. I had the sudden suspicion that security-at-creepy-club wasn't his for-reals job.

"Tricky, aren't you then?" he said, all trace of his previous accent gone.

"Yes," I agreed, similarly unaccented.

"Leave her," he said nodding at Monica. "And I'll let you live."

I smiled. If there's one thing I love in an adversary, it's overconfidence.

He made a grab for Monica. To his surprise -- and mine -- she easily back-flipped out of his grasp with snakey flexibility. I took the opportunity to knee-cap him with a roundhouse kick. As he began to fall, Logan moved in, bouncing his head off of the wall. The dude dropped.

Like I said, gotta love that overconfidence.

People began to pour out of the club. Not-so-far back in the crowd were the two men I had sicced the bouncers on. We were out of time.

"Run," I said and then, pushing Monica in the direction of the car, repeat the word again.

She hesitated like she was suddenly nervous about following us. Not that I could really blame her. Monica had slipped me information occasionally but neither of us had ever assumed we were on the same side. Honestly, I didn't know whose side she was on. She was in it for the thrills, rather than out of some sense of duty. All I knew was that Monica tended to know things. Things that I often needed to know as well. If she was going to talk, she needed to stay alive. Luckily, Logan, seeing her waiver, scooped her up like a baby and we took off at a dead sprint.

Even in heels, I'm pretty fast for someone so vertically challenged but Logan easily outpaced me. Ahead of me, he leapt the door of the convertible, sliding into the seat with that unobvious grace he had always had. I followed close behind, sliding across the hood and then vaulting into the driver's side. Monica had settled comfortably into Logan's lap, curling around him like she belonged there.

"I'm just loving your new babysitter, Xue," she purred in a lilting, upper-crust English accent, her arms tightening around his neck.

"Shut up," I snapped at her and concentrated on driving out of Beijing as quickly as I could.

I was onto the expressway back to Huairou when I was blinded by high-beams in my mirrors. There were cars -- matched black SUVs -- behind us, a lot of them, and they were moving up quickly. I swore under my breath and urged the sports car on. As fast as the Porsche was, they were still gaining on us. I noticed that Logan was shifting around in the seat, trying to extricate himself from Monica. He slid out from underneath her and scrabbled over the back of the car onto the trunk.

"Keep going," Logan roared at me.

His claws flashed in the headlights when they slid out of his hand. Then, like a goddamn showboating Cape, he leapt off of the car.

"Son of a bitch," I screamed.

"That was so hot," Monica squealed, kneeling in the seat he had just left to her.

In the rearview mirror, I saw Logan land with amazing grace on the hood of the lead SUV. Out of control, the cars began to pile up and stop haphazardly. I hit the brakes hard and cranked the wheel to the side. The car spun around in a one-eighty before coming to a complete stop, facing the oncoming traffic. Though, really, the traffic wasn't so much oncoming as being brutally slashed open.

I turned to Monica. "Can you shoot?"

She snorted. "Of course I can."

"Come on, then."

I got out of the car and swiftly went to the trunk, sparing a glance to see what Logan was up to. He was doing his thing -- hacking and slashing and working his way through a swarm of men with brutal elegance. His adversaries were holding their own, though. No weapons, that I could see or hear. Just thrusts and kicks and spins. Ninja shit. Fantastic.

I popped open the trunk to reveal the total arsenal it held.

"Pick your poison," I said to Monica.

She grinned at the selection. "Lovely."

I wished I could feel so pleased.

Guns.

Clips.

Move.

Engage.

Aim.

Shoot.

Maim.

Kill.

It's easy, once you're used to it.

And I am.

A bullet in the right place and a man dies. And I didn't even have to be close enough to see the look in his eyes when he was hit.

God, I hate guns.

Between Logan's claws and my bullets, our assailants dropped quickly. I acted mechanically, letting training, instinct and heritage think for me. In the back of my mind, I mulled over trying to keep one alive to question. That is, until the world around me began to shimmy and shimmer like heat does in the summer off of the pavement in Brooklyn. The temperature of the night air flared. It had been typically cool of Beijing in autumn, but suddenly it was like standing in front of an open oven. There was the terrible stink of rotten eggs. Time slowed and the air seemed to shake and a man whose throat Logan had ripped out lifted himself steadily off of the ground.

His eyes glowed red.

Another man rose and then another and another and another. Their guts trailed and their blood flowed but they rose and walked and fought.

I froze, petrified.

"No," I heard myself as though I was outside of my own body. "No, no, no."

For a moment, with the swirling heat, the smell of sulfur and the deep glow of red, I was in Malaysia again. And then I was back on the expressway, on my hands and knees, retching. There was a hand on my shoulder and an arm around my waist helping to steady me and pull me back to my feet. In the back corner of my mind, I was surprised to see that it was Monica and she looked worried. She had touched me many times and in many ways, but never with concern.

"What are they?" she asked. "What the hell are they?"

There was a rising hysteria in her voice. I knew the feeling.

"Get back in the car," I said hoarsely. "We're getting out of here."

I staggered with out her there to hold me up, but I made it to the trunk. Quelling the panic that was threatening to overtake me, I searched the weaponry frantically until I found what I was looking for. Turning back to the fight, I looked for Logan. There was a flock of the undead around him.

"Wolverine," I screamed. "Get the fuck out of there!"

Amazingly, he listened to me. With a few last slashes, he gracefully used the momentum of his swinging arm to duck and turn and leave the fight behind.

"Drive," I ordered as he neared me.

The zombies were following the path Logan took toward me. For a moment, I looked around for her, even though it couldn't me her. It couldn't. She wasn't there, of course. Jia Li was dead. I had murdered her myself.

I armed the electro-pulse grenade and hurled it with the full weight of my body behind my arm. It went far enough. Pushing Monica over, I slid into the passenger's seat with her. Logan spun the Boxster around and stepped on the gas; the tires squealed as we lurched forward.

Behind us, with three short bursts and a final wide-radius pulse of electricity, the grenade detonated. It effectively took out anyone -- alive, dead and anything in between -- unlucky enough to be in its range. The atmosphere sizzled and Monica laughed with delight tinged with panic.

I sank, exhausted, into the seat as we sped away. The air felt bitterly cold after the spiking heat of whatever magic it was that rose those men. My teeth chattered and my body shook with cold and shock. I was, for probably the first time ever, glad Monica was there when she wrapped her arms around me and let me bury my face in her shoulder.


	11. Chapter 11

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Eleven

We were back in Huairou before 3:00 AM. I barely remembered the trip. Shuddering into Monica's shoulder, I must have passed out. The next thing I knew, the car was stopping and I was curled against her with my arm around her waist and her hand gently stroking my hair. Oh, hell.

Opening my eyes to see her face with unmasked concern and goddamned pity all over it was a level of embarrassment I didn't think it was possible for me to feel anymore. And, yeah, I overreacted. So, sue me.

"Get away from me," I croaked, my mouth dry and sawdusty. Trying to regain some kind of composure, I pushed her, hard.

For just a moment, she looked like she had been slapped and then her jaw clenched and the openness was gone, replaced by a hard, calculating stare. I opened the car door and scrambled out, just wanting to get away. Far, far away. Unfortunately, my body just wasn't having it. I slumped heavily against the Porsche, squeezing my eyes shut, and willed my legs to stop shaking, my stomach to stop turning and my head to stop spinning.

I was having the worst night I had had in a long, long time. And that, let me tell you, is really saying something.

When the vertigo passed, I opened my eyes to find Logan standing in front of me. He was totally covered in blood. I hadn't noticed before.

"You okay to walk?" His voice sounded strained, though he at least had the decency to not look like he thought I was beyond pathetic.

I nodded too vigorously and another round of the spins hit me. It wasn't quite so bad that time, only lasting a couple of seconds. Still, Logan moved like he was going to pick me up. That would definitely not have helped me regain control of the situation. I held up my hand to stop him.

"Not in front of the help, dude."

He nodded tersely, instantly understanding that we still needed something from Monica. I still had a job to do.

The woman herself had, apparently, wandered out of the renovated structure that housed Aunt Hope's vehicles--the Boxster, four motorcycles and a Range Rover. I found Monica outside looking up at the transport. Her arms crossed over her generous chest, she tapped perfectly manicured nails against her biceps.

"SHIELD." Her voice was cold and businesslike.

"Yeah," I replied. I had forgotten that she knew next to nothing about me. It had either been pretty brave or pretty stupid of her to trust that I wasn't trying to kill her, too. Of course, now she knew where my house was. Maybe I was the stupid one, after all.

"That explains rather a lot," she said. "So, are you taking me back to the mothership?"

I sighed and, without explanation, pried her hand away from where it had been clamped to her own forearm. A flicker of surprise registered on her face before she could clamp down on it.

Logan, to my own surprise, offered me his arm to lean on without any accompanying comment. I took it with total gratitude; my legs still felt rubbery.

I led them both through the mists. This time, Logan's tension when the fog shut him in was almost imperceptible. Monica didn't react at all. Her hand, loose in mine, was cool and dry.

"Fantastic," she said dryly, pulling away from me when we emerged into the courtyard. "I'm in bloody Chinese Brigadoon."

Though it was very late, Mister Hu was still up and waiting for us to arrive. He was already in motion when we walked into the inner hall. I was hardly through the doorway and he was unbuttoning my jacket. Pulling the ruined silk off, he checked me for injuries. My knees were skinned from when I had retched onto the pavement. Hu clucked disapprovingly at the raw, meaty mess.

Logan was getting the same treatment from Zeng. His clothes were soaked with blood, though I'm sure not much of it was his. Zeng peeled away Logan's leather jacket, his flannel shirt and the a-line undershirt he typically wore. To his credit, Logan didn't look at all uncomfortable with the attention, though he wouldn't let Zeng wash the blood off of him. Instead, he took the steaming cloth and quickly scrubbed himself.

A frightened-looking boy darted into the room and picked up the discarded clothing. The new apprentice, I assumed. Some introduction he was getting to me, huh? Though we were nearly the same size, he looked at me warily. When I smiled at him, he flinched and ran from the room. Great. I could add _horrifies adolescent boys_ to my resume.

The mountain night was cooler than the city had been and I was glad to finally be bossily shepherded into a chair near the roaring fire. Mister Hu washed my wounds with a warm wet cloth, applied salve and bandaged them. When he had finished with my knees, he took my head in his hands and, before I could even flinch, simultaneously removed both of my contact lenses with his thumbs. Both the diagnosis and the surgical strike were total testaments to his skills. I hadn't even noticed how badly my eyes had been burning.

Monica caught my eye and cocked her head, puppy-like. Sitting languidly in a chair opposite me, she had somehow come through the fight looking as fresh and pretty as she had in the club. Her white cheongsam was hardly even grimy. Only her hair was at all worse-for-wear and even that just looked intentionally windswept. I swear, I'll never understand that. Why is it that some people always come out of a fight looking like they're fresh from a spa weekend? I end up looking like I went ten rounds with Juggernaut and then topped it off by drinking tequila in Tijuana for a week.

Ever the pro, Monica kissed at me and winked.

"Quit it," I snapped at her.

She smiled mercurially.

The boy returned to the hall with a fresh flannel shirt that I could only assume he had retrieved from Logan's bag. He shrugged it on but didn't bother buttoning it. It was such a typical Logan thing to do that I couldn't help chuckling. It was hoarse sound, totally out of place in the serious, quiet room. He looked at me sharply. I shook my head, choking back the inappropriate laughter.

Once we had been seen to, including serving tea that I had no interest in, Mister Hu and the others left the room to us. Monica crossed her legs demurely at the ankle and daintily sipped her tea. Logan lurked quietly near the fireplace, a presence in the room even while in the background. Totally worn out, I breathed deeply and tried to pull myself together.

"Why were you there?" Monica asked abruptly.

I looked at her stupidly. "What?"

"Tonight. Why were you at Rui?" She spoke slowly and clearly as though to someone very slow. Which, honestly, at that moment, I was.

I studied her while trying to decide how I could best play this. Monica's eyes were green and cat-like, so pale they were practically yellow. In the flickering firelight, you might almost think they were warm. I knew better than that, though. I had seen Monica's eyes go cold and cloudy like milky jade while she worked a crowded room, looking for whatever unlucky sucker had the bullseye painted on them. She was a raptor. The fox in every henhouse.

I decided to play it straight.

"I needed information," I answered honestly. "I thought you might be able to help."

She smiled. "So, it was a happy coincidence that, for this one time only, you just happened to bring a babysitter? And not just any old muscle. Oh no. It's the world famous Wolverine. Surely, Xue, you cannot think me that much of a silly bitch."

I should have known there was no way Logan could go unrecognized. Not anymore. Fuck. I was so done in Beijing.

"It really was a coincidence." I tried to soothe her sarcasm. "I swear it was. I'm just trying to get a line on an underground upstart criminal organization. It seemed like it could be the sort of thing that would cross your desk. This was just a right time, right place, right backup sort of thing."

She seemed uninspired by my sincerity. "You're SHIELD. You must forgive me if that doesn't stir a great deal of confidence."

I shrugged. "You never seemed all that hesitant to spill your guts before. What's the big deal now?"

"The big deal," Monica said silkily, "as you so preciously put it, is that I've gone a year thinking that you were Chinese underground and the whole time you were just another one of Nick Fury's thugs."

Logan snorted. Oh, he and Monica were going to be Best Friends Forever with their mutual hatred of the Colonel. The slumber parties were going to be a blast. Monica, however, took his amusement for derision.

"Sodding Americans." She gave him an ugly look.

"Canadian," I corrected automatically.

She turned the glare on me. "What?"

I shrugged. "Canadian. He's Canadian."

"Well, that rather ruins the mystique a bit then, doesn't it?"

Logan was scowling at me. "You wanna give her my home address while you're at it, Jubilation?"

"Jubilation?" Monica asked gleefully. "Is that your name?"

I scowled back at Logan. "Thanks, dude. I'll send her over for a visit when she looks me up in information."

Monica sighed. "Oh, what does it matter now? You'll not be able to work in Beijing like you were, anyway. It's probably all over the city already that vapid little Jing has big guns and even bigger friends."

Shit. She was totally right. I'd probably lost every contact I had in the city. I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the tension headache that was threatening to take over my brain. A whole year of work gone kablooie in a few hours.

Monica wasn't sympathetic. "Don't look so tragic, darling. You're not the only one. I've been burned, too. Dreadful shame, really. I've had a lovely time here."

"Yeah, it's been bitchin'."

"Not to mention," she continued, "you're not the one with the fuck-all walking dead after you."

The walking dead. Zombies. Men who were dead and then just...weren't. And their eyes...fuck. I squeezed my temples harder.

"Do you know why they were following you?" I was surprised by how steady my voice sounded.

"I'm rather inclined to think it may have had something to do with my last project."

"Monica's a swallow," I said, filling in the blank for Logan.

He shrugged. "Makes sense."

Monica smiled, pleased. "Figured that out already, did you? Very good. Most people just see a gold-digging slut. Yes, I shag for secrets." She leaned toward him, practically purring. "And I'm really good at it."

"Stop flirting," I snapped at her. "You're not on the job."

She smiled. "I know I'm not. This is extra-curricular flirting."

"You ain't SHIELD, though," Logan said, ignoring the exchange.

Monica snorted. "What am I, some scaffy ex-pat? Give a girl a bit of respect, would you?"

"She's MI-6." I wiggled my jaw, trying to loosen the growing pressure in my head.

Monica toasted us with her tea. "For Queen and country, darling."

"Why do you think it has something to do your last, um, project? Did something go wrong?" I steered the conversation back to the night's earlier events.

"You could say that. He was a raven." Monica laughed like tinkling crystal.

"Seriously?" I asked. "You were seducing each other?"

She shook her head. "No, no. He was honey-trapping a closeted diplomat."

"So, you were working him while he was working someone else?" I was always impressed by the bizarro coincidences that this work seemed to throw at everyone involved.

"Yes, we had a jolly good laugh about it right before I terminated him."

Cold. No matter what you said about Monica--and I had some totally choice things I could say--she really was good at her job. She never seemed to feel guilty. Never got attached. Never fell in love. Never even really liked anyone, as far as I could tell. She was a totally expertly-trained sociopath. She was, at that moment, smiling over her latest accomplishment.

"You are way too into that."

"What?" Monica asked petulantly. "One is much more effective when one actually enjoys one's profession. Don't you think, Xue?"

"Whatever," I paused. "And stop calling me that!"

"If the shoe fits, darling."

Logan snorted. Jerk.

"It means _snow_," I snarled at him. "She's calling me frigid."

He, probably wisely, chose not to reply.

"Oh, fuck off, both of you." The headache was blooming into my forehead.

Monica looked pleased with herself. "Now, back to the matter at hand. I didn't get much out of him. But what I did get was that the diplomat he had been sent to seduce was somehow involved with an underground upstart criminal organization." Monica smiled as Logan and I traded looks. "Yes, I thought you might be interested in that little tidbit."

I swallowed hard. Could it be that whatever was after Monica that night was involved in my assignment? My head was throbbing. Goddamn stress headaches. I stood unsteadily and went to the tea table. Maybe tea would help. My head swam and my hand shook as I tried to pick up the teapot.

"Let me help you with that, darling," Monica whispered in my ear.

I jumped. I hadn't noticed her come up behind me. Her hand rested on the small of my back and I hadn't noticed. The pressure in my head was too distracting. She poured tea into a cup, hovering more closely to me than I was comfortable with.

Mr. Zeng appeared in the doorway. He bowed slightly to me.

I turned to face Monica. "Your room is ready."

"My room? My room all by myself?" She stroked the bare line of my collarbone with a delicate touch. I regretted wearing a strapless dress. Next time, I'd find a nice burqa.

"Yes, Monica," I snapped. "Your room all by yourself."

"All by myself?" she asked again, this time of Logan. "But I'll be so terribly lonely."

"You'll survive." Logan grimaced at her.

"Oh, you're no fun at all," Monica pouted. She turned to me incriminatingly. "You've got this one wrapped around your little finger, Xue. How do you do it, I wonder."

It felt like my head was pulsating with the drum-like throbbing. She caught my chin between her thumb and forefinger and turned my face up to her as though she was going to kiss me.

"It's those eyes, I think," she murmured, the velvet of her voice undercut by vicious acid. "Blue like lapis. One could swim in them. Where ever did a little Chink like you get eyes like that?"

I closed them. "Shut the fuck up and go away, xiaojie."

"You're so cute when you call me a whore," she whispered, her breath warm and sweet on my face.

My stomach turned. I opened my eyes and saw only red. Throbbing red pain. Red fire. Red rage. Red, red eyes. I trembled with the force of it.

"Get out of my face, Monica, before I fucking break yours." My own voice sounded detached, like it wasn't coming out of my mouth.

Her smile was bright, fake and bitter. She let go of my chin roughly and went with Zeng.

"Did you notice their eyes?" Monica asked, turning back to us. "Those men, when they got up again, their eyes were red. Just red."

Red eyes. I couldn't answer her. My mouth was too dry.

"Yeah," Logan answered her. "I noticed."

"Red eyes," she said as she left the room. "Creepy."

They had red eyes.

"She's a real piece of work," Logan said when she was gone.

I nodded wordlessly. It was all I could manage.

My hand trembled when I tried to pick up my tea cup. The steaming liquid spilled over my finger. As hot as it was, it must have burned my fingers; but I couldn't feel it. I tried to move and my legs shook. My chest felt tight. My head pounded. It hurt. And there was something else. A familiar feeling that I couldn't quite place. It felt like my head was in a vice. Like there was a cement block resting on top of it. Like...

Like someone was trying to get in. The realization hit me harder than the pain did. Someone was breaking through my metal shields. I tried to clamp down and push them back out.

But it was too late.

Because they had red eyes. They were dead and then they weren't and they had red eyes. They had red eyes. They had red eyes and I couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe. The room spun and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't feel my legs and I couldn't breathe. I heard Logan calling my name but I couldn't answer. He was so far away and I couldn't breathe.

I was in Malaysia.

I was screaming.

There was a figure in front of me, hazy and black like it was made out of moving coal smoke. I smelled the acrid fire of it as it flowed around me. There were hot hands on my face, on my chest. They trapped me in their foggy, flaming grasp. They felt tighter and tighter until the form in front of me solidified. Into someone I recognized. The impossibly long, snaking black hair. The bottomless black eyes. The cold, vicious smile.

God, help me. It was Jia Li.

"There you are," she said to me, though not in any language I had ever heard. "I thought I would never get you."

Her neck burst open where I had cut her. The blood soaked down her robes until she looked like she had the last time I saw her. She smiled at me. There was blood in her teeth. It spilled out of her mouth. She shook her head as though I had done something adorably naughty.

"Did you really think it would be that easy? That you could rip me open and that would be the end of it?" She pulled me closer to her and hugged me like a child. "You cannot kill Death."

The blood flowed out of her mouth. Out of her nose. Her eyes. I poured out of her face and into mine, choking me. Gagging me. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't struggle.

"Find me," I heard her whispering voice in my head. "Come and find me. I am so desiring to see you again."

She let me go.

Far more quickly than it had disappeared, the house in Huairou was yanked back to me. There were cold hands on my face and the bitter taste of huang gin on my tongue. I felt strong, familiar arms cradling me.

"Breathe, darlin'," I heard someone say. "C'mon and breathe. Breathe for me, darlin'. C'mon."

I was wheezing and choking. The healing hands left my face and traveled down my neck, leaving a cool trail in their wake. They came to rest over my lungs, over my heart. My pulse slowed and my lungs opened. I could breathe again. With the rush of air, my eyes cleared. It was Mr. Hu's hands over my heart. Logan, kneeling on the floor, held me close to his chest. Still gasping, I desperately clutched at his shirt as though he could ground me here.

"Shan gao Huangdi yuan," Mister Hu said softly to me. His voice vibrated through me and with the proverb came a calming peace. The mountain was high and the emperor was far away. I was safe. There was no danger. There were no red eyes. No witch. No death. There was just Hu's voice and Logan's warm, safe arms and then blessed nothingness.


	12. Chapter 12

**Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth**

**Chapter Twelve**

"There are worse things than being dead," Vatinius said.

I smiled. "I've been dead before."

"Then you know."

It was a warm summer night in Salem Center. I was sitting at the end of the dock next to the boathouse with my feet dangling into water. The moon was bright and full in the deep blue-black sky, reflecting squiggly strands of mercury into the water. There were fireflies zipping around me, lighting up the night like fireworks. Like the Fourth of July.

"I used to do that," I said, pointing at them. "It was beautiful. I made beautiful things. People loved them. I made people happy."

"This is more important." Vatinius was standing behind me, looking out over the cove.

I held out my hand, palm up and fingers spread. Five fireflies touched down on the tips of my fingers. They twinkled there with bodies made from colored light. I held them up so that Vatinius could see.

"Like that," I whispered. "It was like that."

"This is more important." His voice was full and deep, the way it sounded when he was giving orders in the field or speaking incantations. "The hand has five fingers, each of which can exist independently of the others. But five severed fingers do not make a hand."

The bugs flashed, flickered and went out. They lay on my fingertips, motionless and dark. I wanted to cry like I had cried on that dock many times before.

"They're dead."

"There are worse things than being dead," Vatinius said.

I nodded. "There's Death."

"Worse things than that. You've been dead. You know."

I dropped the dead bugs into the water. It lapped my feet. Warm like blood. Sticky like blood. Red like blood.

Blood.

It was blood.

I was dangling my feet in blood.

There was blood all over me.

I scrambled backwards, a scream tangled in my panic-tightened throat. Back. My hands scraping painfully on the wood of the dock. Back. My feet scrabbling on the loose dirt and rocks. Back. Until the ground was soft and grassy beneath me. Back. Until my shoulders hit something solid.

It was a cross.

There were crosses driven into mansion's lawn. Crosses big enough to nail someone to. And it was already done. The crucifixions were done. I looked up at the cross above me. I looked up and saw my own face, slack-jawed and gray. It was already done. I was already dead.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. I was already dead. I heard whispers all around me. Deafening murmurs all saying the same thing.

_Dead girl. Dead girl's already dead. Dead girl. You're already dead, dead girl._

I jerked awake still suffocating on my own swallowed screams.

I was in my room in Huairou. Not in Salem. Not on the lawn. Not dead. Alive. I was alive, in the darkness of my enormous bed that smelled like cypress. Laying there gasping, I clutched the sheets until the panic faded and I could take a breath without wanting to let it out in a scream.

I never wanted to sleep again

There was daylight squeezing in around the bed's drawn curtain. Pulling it aside, I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Cautiously, I stood. I swayed dangerously at first but quickly got my balance back. A quick inventory revealed that my muscles felt a little bit rubbery and my knees ached but that was pretty much it. I didn't even have a headache anymore. Other than the perpetual exhaustion, I felt okay.

The night before was a total blur, though. I didn't even know how I ended up in my room. I was still wearing my dress from the night before and, by my sticky, crusty-feeling eyes, I must have still had a full face of makeup on. I was thankful that someone had been nice enough to take my boots off.

Staggering to the window, I was surprised to see how it early it was. Outside, the sky was still red from the sunrise. Blood red.

Red sky in the morning, little dead girls take warning.

I felt very tired and very, very old.

And I smelled totally gross.

The first time I saw it, I had been totally surprised by the suite's bathroom. Hope knew better than I did, though, that if there's one thing an assassin or spy or superhero needs, it's a really great bathroom. In the sunken bath, I ran water hotter than was comfortable. Letting it fill around me, I sat in the rising water with my forehead pillowed on knees pulled up to my chest.

They'd tried to pin me with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after Malaysia. It was just the Colonel's insistence along with the internal notoriety that it had given me that kept the docs off my back. Maybe they were right, though. Maybe last night had just been some sort of panic attack. It couldn't have been Jia Li. She was dead. I watched her die. The witch wasn't Death incarnate. She was just a woman.

"Yeah right," I muttered to myself. She was just a woman like I was just a teenaged girl. There was more to it than that. I knew better than most people that dying doesn't mean much. That sometimes it's not permanent. Sometimes it just doesn't stick.

I was light-headed and my skin was turning red.

In the too-hot water, I washed my hair and scrubbed my body with handmade soap that smelled like ylang-ylang and calamus. After letting the water out of the bathtub, I dripped across the bathroom to the separate shower. I positioned myself directly under the showerhead, gritted my teeth and flipped the water on full-blast and icy cold. I gasped with the shock of it but stayed under the spray until I felt totally numbed out. Until I felt less like I was going to fall apart.

Once I was outside in the brisk morning air, I felt even better. Dressed in stretchy, black yoga pants and an athletic top with a black zip-up over it, I stretched my tightly wound limbs. Gently at first with yoga poses, I eventually worked myself into gymnastic contortions that could have put me in Cirque du Soleil.

After limbering up, I left the siheyuan and walked back into the hills of Huairou until I found the foot of path I was looking for. There were over four hundred steps to the top of the mountain temple. They'd dissuade anyone who wasn't serious about making it to the temple, for sure. Running up them, I pushed myself harder than I probably should have, enjoying the burning in the muscles of my legs and back.

At the top of the hill, was the temple pavilion, lacquered with red stain. Breathing hard, I reached the enclosure. Carved into the lacquered and gilded ceiling was an enormous phoenix engulfed in flames with a dragon swallowing its own tail coiled around it. It screamed _we will never die_ in the most unsubtle way possible. My family was so fucking arrogant. Like they were totally confident in their own immortality. Well, the Lees weren't doing so well these days. After me, it was pretty much going to be a freefall into obscurity.

I kicked my shoes off and knelt in the center of the pavilion. With my feet tucked beneath me and my back straight, I laid my hands, palms up, on my thighs. I breathed deeply and slowly and tried to relax. Tried to let myself be still. It wasn't as difficult to do as it had been when I was younger. As it had been before White Day, when I had the manic energy of the elements pounding through me all of the time. I could breathe and be quiet and not move a muscle -- all important skills in spook work. Even so, it was still hard to shut up the chattering in my head.

When do most people start thinking about what they want to do with their lives? And I don't mean the whole _when I grow up I want to be a veterinarian-firefighter-ballerina _thing. I'm talking about identity, here. A chosen path. Because, for the past seven years, the only thing I've wanted to be is still breathing. How sad is that? I had been an adolescent girl without any real aspirations beyond not dropping dead. It just didn't seem fair.

And I hated all of it sometimes. I really did. The fighting and missions and fucking seriousness of it all. But what would I have done without it? I could have retreated to Huairou permanently, I guess. But that would have been like running away. Like hiding. And Jubilation Lee doesn't run and she sure as hell doesn't hide.

I went up to the temple for clarity. Yeah, not so much. It didn't matter, though. There was a job. That was all that mattered. The job. The assignment. My personal problems couldn't get in the way. The psychotic break that I seemed to be on the verge of would just have to wait. I needed to do my job. Needed to focus. People were counting on me. Breathing deeply, I tried to clear my head and do just that.

Focus. Dead girl. Breathe. You're already dead. Focus. Jia Li in my head. Breathe. Death in my dreams. Focus. Logan. Breathe. Logan coming up silently behind me.

Fuck.

"You looking for me?" I spoke without opening my eyes or turning around.

I heard him huff in surprise. "Getting good, girl."

"Sha-to-the-Eeld, baby. They train us real good up on that there flying spaceship."

I opened my eyes. Logan was in front of me, leaning his back against one of the pavilion's columns with his arms folded over his chest and his legs crossed.

"How you feeling?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I've felt worse."

He nodded. "Looked pretty bad last night."

"Felt pretty bad last night," I admitted. "I was going to talk to you about that. I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention what happened to anyone."

He snorted. "To Fury, you mean."

"To anyone. But, yeah. Especially him."

Logan turned, resting one arm above his head on the column. With his back to me, he looked out over the mountain range.

"This how it is with you, now?" His voice was quiet and flat. "Living in an assassin's house. Killing for Nick Fury. Breaking yourself for him."

I sighed and got to my feet. With my knees aching, I crossed the pavilion to stand beside him. The hills were beautiful in the morning. With thick mists across the valleys, it was like the thickly foliaged peaks were floating in clouds.

My voice was even and calm, mostly because I was too tired to be angry. "Killing's not a crime, Logan. It's a choice. And I made my decision a long time ago. I've been trained to do this since I was a little girl. You know that. You trained me. So, I realized that I'd never make it through this kind of life without killing anyone. It was foolish to think I could -- the pipedream of a kid." I smiled half-heartedly at him. "And I sure as hell ain't a kid anymore."

Logan grimaced. "Yeah, I got that."

"Dude, come on," I said coaxingly, laying my hand on his arm. "I had issues way before I got to SHIELD. Blaming the Colonel for my problems would be like blaming Xavier for yours."

He looked down at my hand. "You got any idea what that man's really about?"

I sighed. "Don't go there. Just, please don't."

Logan turned, squaring off with me. He looked totally furious. "You got any idea what he's done? Any idea what he's done to me?"

I gasped. Unbelievable. Too tired to be angry? Yeah, right. I had seriously underestimated his ability to piss me off.

"It's always about you, isn't it?" I snapped at him. "Nick saved my life. After White Day, he saved me. He gave me a purpose again. He gave me a home."

"You had a home."

I sputtered. "What? No. What? I had a home? Where? Tell me where this home was. You can't possibly be talking about the mansion because Emma kicked me out on my ass."

"So you went running off and sold your soul to SHIELD?"

I shoved him as hard as I could. It hurt my wrists but he didn't move even a little.

"Fuck you," I didn't bother trying to keep my voice down. "Fuck you, Wolverine. I looked for you. All over the world, I looked for you. So, don't you give me shit about running. Between the two of us, you're the track and field champion."

"I was going through something," he snarled.

"So, was I! I could have helped you. Helping you would have helped me. Hell, just being around you would have helped me."

"I ain't someone you should have been running around after. I had nothing to offer you."

I laughed bitterly. "You want to talk about who had nothing to offer? I had nothing! I was sixteen. I was broke. Everything I had ever known was gone. How was I supposed to function like that? Like suddenly I was supposed to be a normal person? I don't know anything about being normal. I don't know how to live like that."

"So, it was Fury or nothing?"

"Yeah, that's right. It was Fury or nothing." I lowered my voice and said each word very slowly and clearly. "Because I had nothing."

"Jubilation." He said my name unsurely.

"Nothing. Do you understand? No family. Nowhere to go. And I didn't even have you. I never asked for much from you, Logan. I didn't. But I..." My voice faltered. "I counted on you."

Logan was quiet. I breathed out. It was like the anger had been leeched out of me and the only thing left for me to feel was exhaustion. I backed away from him until I reached the column at the opposite edge of the pavilion. Logan leaned back against his column. He was wearing clothes that looked almost identical to what he had been wearing the night before.

Nothing ever changed. Ever.

My body felt to almost to heavy to hold up.

"I didn't think you'd want to see me," he said, his voice rough with embarrassed honesty. "After White Day. After everything that happened. After everything I done. Ain't a lot of doors that were open to me after that. Didn't think you want to see me. Being my pal wouldn't have made you too popular with the SHIELD crowd."

I was hurt. "You thought I wouldn't want to see you because it might make me unpopular? Seriously? You really thought that little of me?"

"Nah, darlin'. I thought that little of me."

I didn't know what to say. So I didn't say anything. I just leaned my back against the column across from him. We stood there, both leaning and looking out over the hills, opposite but parallel, like we had been since the day we met.

"You know, I used to say that I ain't got no regrets," he finally said very quietly.

I looked up at him. "I remember."

"Well, I got them now." His voice was cracking. "I got more regrets than I got tears to cry for them. And leaving you behind, every time I ever done it, I regret it."

It was those words that finished it. Those words and the look on his face. Logan looked more broken than I could remember him ever being before. I remembered why I had forgiven him a hundred times before. Whatever resentment I had felt, was gone in an instant. I pushed myself off of the column and quickly crossed the pavilion to him. The last thing I saw was the look of pure surprise on his face before I put my arms around his waist and hugged him as tightly as I could. I felt him heave a huge, shuddering sigh and finally wrap his arms around me. We stood like that for a long time.

Until I felt his nose in my hair. Like he had the day before, he breathed in deeply.

I looked up at him. "Dude, what is up with the sniffing?"

He actually looked kind of sheepish. "You smell different."

I shrugged."You haven't been around me in years. A person's smell must change. You know, with age or where they live or whatever."

"Not like this." He inhaled again. "You smell like a different person. I never would've recognized it. Didn't even think it was really you at first."

I laughed kind of weakly. "Maybe I'm not. Maybe I'm an imposter."

"Nah, it's you," he rumbled. "My gut knows it, darlin', even if my nose don't."

"What did I smell like before?" I couldn't help asking.

He breathed me in again before answering. "Like a little girl. Fake sometimes -- like candy flavors. Grape and bubblegum." He paused before going on. "And like burning. Like energy. Like a nuke, sometimes."

I smiled. "Yeah, well, I don't do much paffing anymore. And by not much, I mean none." The moment I finished speaking, my heart felt like it stopped beating. "You haven't seen me since White Day."

He nodded. "Since before that."

I tried to remember the last time Logan had really seen me. The last time he had known I was anywhere near him.

"I visited Shane after I graduated," I mused aloud, putting it together. "The Hydra attack happened while I was in Los Angeles. I went back to the mansion after it, but you didn't. And then I went to London to hang out with Paige and Warren. By the time I got back, you were at Casa de Avengers pretty much twenty-four-seven."

"And then White Day," he finished.

"And then White Day," I echoed him.

And just like that, I had a mega-epiphany. It was like being thrown in freezing cold water and then struck by lightning. Totally shocking. I decided I knew how geniuses felt all of the time. That's how amazing a revelation it was.

"I smell different without my powers. I smell totally different. So, if we were in the same place at the same time, you wouldn't have known. If you couldn't see me, you wouldn't have known I was there."

I was practically panting with the unbelievably outrageous weirdness of it. Malaysia. I had been blaming him for letting me die in Malaysia. But he didn't know I had been there. He was in a berserker rage and I didn't smell like the girl he had known. It wasn't his fault. He hadn't forgotten. It really was me who was different.

Logan looked puzzled. "What're you talking about, Jubes?"

I smiled up at him. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It doesn't matter anymore."

Hugging him closely again, I pressed my cheek to his chest. Logan stroked my hair gently with his rough hand. I sighed. He smelled like cigars and leather, exactly like I remembered. Holding me close, breathed me in again and again, like he was memorizing my scent.

Like he was learning me all over again.


	13. Chapter 13

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Thirteen

"Nice place you got here," Logan said.

We were standing in the temple pavilion, looking out at the surrounding lands. Not that I was doing much sightseeing, curled into Logan's side like I was, my arms around his waist.

"It's not bad," I replied.

I knew how beautiful it was without looking up. The mists that cloaked the Siyehuan hung heavily over the adjacent mountains. Still green, even though it was late in the season, they reflected their color back into the fog, turning it a blue-gray, like the Atlantic in a squall. It seemed like an uncommonly warm autumn, but I only had the previous year to base that assumption on. That year it had been totally glacial, already snowing by October.

I hugged Logan a little tighter, like he could ward of the chill I could still feel. He was always warm.

I wasn't usually so clingy. Not with other people, anyway. And not with him, either, really. I used to purposely be the exact opposite of clingy. I just didn't want anyone to think I was some kid who needed to be mommied. At first, anyway. After a while, I figured out that it was easier to keep people at a distance. No one gets attached. No one gets hurt. Jean once told me that I was less touchable than Rogue. I stuck my tongue out at her and then got away from her as fast as I could, proving her totally right. _No Snuggles_ was my numero uno rule to live by.

Rules are made to be broken, though. Even rules that I made up myself. Whatever. After everything we'd been through, I figured that I was entitled to some barnacle action. Not that Logan was totally put out by it. In fact, he actually seemed kind of pleased. One arm hugged me close to him, his hand cupped possessively around my neck.

"You like it here?" Logan asked.

I looked up at him. "Yeah, I do. And no, I don't, at the same time. It's kind of a love-hate thing."

"Huh," Logan said, sounding kind of surprised.

I called him on it. "What?"

He seemed to fight with himself over some thought but he finally said, "Seems like you're comfortable here. Like you fit here."

"And that's, like, astonishing, somehow?"

He shrugged. "Used to have to drag you kicking and screaming out of the States."

I thought about that. It was true. While I would have followed Logan all the way to Hell, I hadn't been exactly fond of language barriers and the absence of fast food. At some point along the way, that had changed. And by 'some point', I really mean 'White Day'. I bit my lip. Was that something I really wanted to try to explain to Logan? I didn't totally get it myself.

"How much do you remember about the House of M?" I finally asked.

He looked down at me, eyebrows raised. "About what the Witch did?"

"About that, yeah."

"All of it," he admitted kind of reluctantly.

"Clearly?"

"Crystal."

I nodded. That jibed with what I knew about Logan's regained memories. It actually made sense, as much as anything about White Day made sense.

"Well, I don't remember much," I said. "It's all faded, like it's a dream I had a long time ago. I remember bits and pieces. Flashes of faces. Hazy images. Feelings. There are people I really care about even though I hardly know them. Like, I still talk to Sooraya. We were never friends before but suddenly it was just there."

"Who?" Logan asked.

"Sooraya," I repeated. "Sooraya Qadir."

"Do I know her?"

I scrunched my nose. "Dude, were you, like, the worst teacher ever, or what? She was at Xavier's."

He looked at me blankly.

"She roomed with clone-girl--Loganette or Wolverina or whatever."

He frowned at me for snarking on his unself but shrugged.

I broke away from him, throwing my hands up in the air. "Dude, come on! Sooraya. Wears a big black blanket. Turns into a swirly sandstorm."

At that, he finally nodded. "Busted her out of a slavery-ring."

I rolled my eyes. Leave it to Logan to only remember the grand gestures. "Yes; yes, you did. Totally heroic or whatever. My point is that we never really knew each other. Not for real. I was trying to make it out of the student scene as fast as Jubilationly possible."

I made a face at the memory. After Logan had brought me back from Los Angeles, I had been majorly miserable. It felt like I had been in superhero school for approximately a billion-trillion years. Going back to the mansion was like being in strategy preschool; there wasn't a whole lot of common ground between myself and the other students. I had my own room and was already on a first-name-basis with the entire staff. Spending most of my free time hanging out with Hank or Bobby, I hadn't made any friends amongst the students. They had resented me and I hadn't cared. I was bored and totally bitchy.

Logan was smirking at me again. He knew how totally irritated I had been with Scott's insistence that I finish out the Institute's program.

"Anyway," I continued. "It's all pretty murky but we were close, Sooraya and I. It was weird but we both felt it and it didn't go away. That's kind of a minor example, though. There's some other stuff that really stuck with me. Like, I've learned a lot of languages, working for SHIELD, but Mandarin ain't one of 'em."

Logan's eyebrows shot up. "You came out of the M with..."

I cut him off. "No more mutant powers, but a shiny new cultural understanding. Bilingualism included in the package. Cool, huh?"

He snorted. "Gotta wonder sometimes if the Witch knows what exactly she done."

"If she's even alive," I countered.

"She's alive. She'll turn up somewhere, someday."

"If that happens, I'm so there." I grinned and bounced a little bit. "My fist is totally dying to meet her face."

"Get in line, darlin'."

"Is it a super-long line?"

"You got no idea."

I cocked my head. "Maybe I'll just cut out the middle man and find her myself."

"You ever want help with that, you let me know."

I laughed. "I was kidding, Logan. Mostly."

"Me too. Mostly." He gave me that guileful smile that meant he was contemplating something totally wicked--and usually massively violent.

Snickering quietly, I sat down on the floor and started to pick the knots out of the laces of my running shoes. Logan leaned against the side of the pavilion, his hands resting on the carved railing that was the only thing keeping him from tumbling down the side of the mountain. I hoped it would hold. It was totally ancient and Logan was freakin' heavy.

"You know," I started, conversationally. "I'm not even that angry anymore."

"'Bout what, darlin'?"

"White Day. I mean, I will be forever pissed that Magneto fucked up the world again."

Logan opened his mouth to respond.

I cut him off. "And don't tell me that it wasn't his fault. If he hadn't been such a megalomaniac jerk, maybe his kids wouldn't have been so totally whacko."

He snorted. "You think I ain't gonna back you up on that one?"

"Of course you would." I shook my head. "Guess I'm used to people telling me to, you know, take it easy. Be fair. Use better judgment. Don't jump to conclusions, Agent Lee. Don't tread on any toes, Agent Lee. Don't punch Val in the nose no matter how much she asks for it, Agent Lee."

Logan looked like he wanted to laugh. "Don't much get along with the Contessa, eh?"

I shot him a total duh-look. "What I'm saying is that, while losing my powers and my place on the team was, like, a total tragedy when it happened, the stuff I've been through since then totally eclipses it." I shrugged. "White Day sucked but I've seen worse."

Logan nodded but didn't say anything. He was frowning, deep in thought. I finished tying my shoes and stood up, brushing my butt off.

"You ever gonna tell me what happened to you last night?"

I froze, swallowing thickly before I could answer. "It's really not that big of a deal."

Logan crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. "Bullshit. I was there, remember? The old man almost had to pull your tongue out of your goddamn throat."

I held out my palms in a gesture of defeat. "Look, I'm not sure, okay? Maybe a flashback or a panic attack or something. I'm just...not sure."

By the skeptical look on his face, he knew I was being cagey. I was totally hesitant to tell him that I thought it was possible that a dead woman--a woman I myself had killed--had broken into my head, which is normally sealed up tighter than Fort Knox.

"Flashback to what?" he asked.

I bit my lip, unsure of how much I wanted to tell him right at that moment. I settled on vagueness as the best possible course of action.

"Something I've seen that was worse."

Logan looked at me searchingly, as though he could divine the whole truth through my face. "You got a lotta stories to tell."

I laughed at that. "I'd say we both do."

"We'll have to trade 'em."

I nodded. "Someday."

"Someday," he echoed in agreement.

We stood quietly for a moment, the air changing from early morning chilly to sunny autumn day around us. Logan was looking at me with a sort of fondness I hadn't seen from anyone in a long time. It warmed me more than the brightening sun did. I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my jacket and ducked my head to hide the blush that bloomed across my cheeks.

"I gotta go check in," I muttered.

"With Fury?"

I nodded. "Come with?"

Logan grimaced. "Think I'll letcha handle that on your own. Been meaning to take a look around this place of yours, anyway."

I let it go--for the time being. Whatever beef he and Nick had, I was probably better off not knowing. That didn't make me any less curious, of course.

I shrugged. "Sure. Don't take too long, though, 'kay? We gotta figure out our next move."

At that, Logan smiled. It was just a little smile--he'd never been much of a grinner--and held more bemusement than it did actual joy.

"What?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "Y'aint much like I remember you, is all."

I half-shrugged with one shoulder. "I ain't much like I remember me either."

I left Logan looking out over the blue-fogged hills and valleys of Huairou and trotted down the steps. There was an extra bounce to my step that hadn't been there for a long time. Everything was a little bit brighter, a little bit sunnier. It seemed that I had vastly underrated the value of working out my personal issues. Yeah, Doctor Phil is a total freakin' genius.

Now to deal with the work stuff.


	14. Chapter 14

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Fourteen

To contact the Helicarrier, I had to go back out through the fog again to the transport. Going out was harder than coming in--for me, anyway. There was a lurching, sinking feeling that left me feeling lonely and low. I liked to think it was the house's way of saying that it would miss me.

Once I was in the jet, I checked the time. It was just past eight. If the Helicarrier was where I had left it, put it a little bit past eight o'clock at night. Early enough that the Nick was probably still working. I sat down at the console and propped my feet up on the workstation. Dialing into the communications link to the Helicarrier, I said my serial number and the connection I was looking for and waited for the voice recognition software to patch me through to the Colonel.

I was right about Nick still working. When he came up on the screen, I could see his private office behind him. Sitting in a chair, he was angled away from the camera, working on the touch panel to his right. He looked totally tense.

"Colonel," I chirped in greeting.

"Agent Pigpen," he replied and turned his eyes to the camera. He was smirking.

"What'd I do now?" I asked, making a pouty face.

"That was quite a mess you left on the Expressway."

A smaller image came up in the corner of the screen. Images of the disarray that was left on the road and the hazmat-suited team cleaning it up clicked by.

I put my hands up defensively. "Okay, that was so not my fault."

Nick ignored me. "Electro-pulse did a real number on the surrounding area."

The images continued to flash in the corner. Close-ups of fried bodies, now. A tremor shook my chest, making my breath ragged.

"Oh, please. It wasn't that bad." I forcefully made my voice bright and cheerful.

"Housekeeping wants your head on a platter," he replied with a teasing tilt of his head.

"Well, they can get in line," I said, a little more stridently than I had really intended. Fucking Housekeeping.

Nick grimaced, the teasing look totally gone. "Talk to me, Lee. What's going on out there?"

I sighed. "Well, to begin with, I have a burned MI-6 operative in my custody."

"Contact?"

I nodded. "She's the reason for the crispy critters on the road. There were some seriously bad news bears on her tail."

I went into more detail about everything that happened the night before. When I mentioned what Monica had said about her mark, Nick frowned and went back to the panel.

"We got some intel on a Ukrainian diplomat found dead yesterday in Beijing. Take a look."

The file appeared in the corner of the screen. I found myself looking at a moderately handsome, middle-aged man. Fadeyushka Melnik. Ukrainian diplomat to Madripoor.

Madripoor. Fantastic.

I skimmed the file quickly. Melnik was murdered, execution-style. His body was dumped near the river, not all that far away from where we were last night. Coincidence? Maybe. Monica had said that she terminated the raven. She didn't mention the diplomat. We were going to have to have a long chat, Monica and I.

When I reached the photographs at the end of the file, my stomach lurched.

"They cut his eyes out," I said aloud. "Why would they cut his eyes out?"

"Saw something he shouldn't have?" Nick mused.

I shuddered. "Gross."

"You think your contact had something to do with that?"

I decided to skip the rest of the stills. Closing the file, I looked at Nick again. "Don't know. Even if she didn't, I think it's probably best that she doesn't go home just yet."

Nick nodded. "I'll send out a transport to pick her up and bring her back here."

"Actually, I suggest we keep her here. She'll be as safe and secure here as she would be on board."

The Colonel raised an eyebrow. He had never visited Huairou with me, though I had invited him. It was too hard for him to get away from work. He knew it was tough to get to the Siheyuan, but he didn't know exactly how safe it could be.

"You sure?" he asked skeptically.

"Yeah, I am. Plus, she doesn't exactly have a boner for SHIELD personnel. Particularly not for you--no offence, sir."

He shrugged. "MI-6 ain't never been that pleased to see us coming."

I made a noncommittal noise. Thinking about the previous night and the blind Ukrainian, I tapped my fingers on the console with one hand while I chewed the thumbnail of the other.

Nick interrupted my reverie. "Further observations, Agent Lee?"

I stopped worrying my thumb and looked up at the monitor. "Those guys last night? They were way badass, Colonel. If Logan hadn't been with me, I would have been in some seriously deep shit."

The Colonel was quiet at that, lost in thought, himself. I waited, nibbling on my nail again.

"You two talk much?" he finally asked.

I frowned. "Some."

"About anything in particular?"

If I didn't know better, I'd say he looked worried. That was silly, though. What could be bad enough that Nick would worry about me talking to Logan too much? It was something I would have to ponder later on.

I shrugged. "Not really. Old times, mostly."

Nick didn't reply to that. His brow furrowed, he turned back to the panel. "Unless you come up with something more substantial in China, you should look at Madripoor next."

Aw, crap. I gave a heavy sigh. "Fine."

"And this is my ears only from here on, Lee. We're overlapping on another agency here. I ain't interested in dealing with a bunch of pissed-off Brits."

"Good," I said and nodded. It must have been a little bit over-enthusiastic because Nick's head jerked back to the screen.

"You ain't telling me something," he said. "What's the problem?"

I shrugged half-heartedly and spoke hesitantly. "It's just that, last night, something wasn't...right."

I stopped and looked down from the screen. I fought the urge to cross my arms over my chest--a sure giveaway of how unsure and defensive I was feeling. Nick picked up on it anyway.

"Why is that, Jubilation?" he asked, the sudden softness of his voice betraying his concern.

Picking at my nail for a moment, I thought about how I should tell him my suspicions. Would he think I was crazy? Would he insist I come home? Would he send someone to get me?

"I think...," I paused and took a breath. "I don't know how it could be, but I think it might be Jia Li."

I said the last bit in a rush and then waited for his response. My breath held, I watched his face on the screen.

The Colonel was passive and still. He didn't look like he thought I was crazy. He didn't even look surprised. I mean, Nick never looked surprised. But I knew him well enough to know when he really was surprised and when he...

"Already knew," I said aloud. "You already knew, didn't you?"

"Yes." Nick's poker face didn't waiver.

"When I got the assignment, you knew. You knew all about this. You knew it might be her."

"Yes."

"And you sent me in, anyway. Knowing everything you do, you sent me in."

"Yes."

I sat up straight, my feet hitting the floor. The Colonel was inert, surely watching me on his own monitor, as I was watching him. He was waiting for me to react. My jaw tightened.

"Is there anything else you haven't told me?" I asked through teeth I couldn't unclench.

There was a moment of silence, exacerbated by the slight communications relay delay.

"No," Nick finally replied, staring passively out of the monitor at me.

I swear, my heart stopped. Nick lied. He lied. Nick was lying to me. Even with just his face on a screen, I could tell that he was. He answered me with textbook perfection–-the exacting precision of a well-trained, well-practiced faker. I couldn't believe it. He hadn't ever lied to before, not directly, anyway. I was suddenly totally certain of that fact. That's the problem with sharing your life with another spook. It doesn't matter how good you are–-if you start out with honesty, it's almost impossible to pull off a fake-out.

Or maybe I just knew him well enough to recognize it. I had heard him shout my name in anger, in passion, in fear. I had known him in the most brutally honest and open times people experience. He couldn't straight-up lie to me. I doubted that I could get away with really lying to him. He had, after all, witnessed me in every possible situation. The man had seen me die. I couldn't slip one by someone who had watched me breathe my last and then brought me back.

I swallowed hard and watched his face on the screen. He knew he hadn't fooled me. I knew I hadn't fooled him. We were mutually un-fooled and we both knew it.

But there wasn't any point in calling him on it, either.

"Alright," I finally answered.

Nick looked as uneasy as I felt.

Every other time, in every other situation, he had just said that he couldn't tell me and we had left it at that. I understood clearance issues. I understood procedure. I didn't understand why he was lying.

The tenuous peace I had felt with Logan in the mountain temple was gone. That warm glow of knowing that something was actually right in the world had disappeared. It was like I had traded Nick for Logan and my life was totally out of control again. Only, this time, I couldn't even work myself up into anger or indignation or even irritation.

This time, I was just scared.


	15. Chapter 15

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Fifteen

After talking to Nick, I spent a long time sitting in the transport and staring at my shoes. Nothing about the way we left things felt good. Not the intel. Not the job. Not the brittle remains of our usual easy conversation or the strained way that Nick told me to watch my back before signing off. I looked up at the blank screen where his face had been and wished that I could just go home. Just say to hell with dead witches and English spies and run home to Nick and forget any of this had ever happened.

But that would mean that everything with Logan would go back to the way it had been. I wouldn't give that up for anything. Not even undisturbed peace with Nick.

I rubbed my eyes with my fists and pushed myself out of the seat. I needed to find Monica. We had a few items to discuss.

Walking through the green forest and back through the fog, I gave myself a stern talking to. I was getting paranoid. Going all Lone Gunmen or something. If Nick was keeping something from me, there had to be a good reason for it, right? I was used to not knowing everything. I don't think I've been entirely in the loop on anything since I was eleven years old. That was pretty much the status quo as far as I was concerned.

So why did I still feel totally sick with dread?

Monica wasn't in her room. She wasn't in the courtyards or the main hall. I was starting to worry that she had tried to escape the compound when I found her at the mui fa jong. At the center of the course of uneven posts, she was balanced on one as high as my hip. She moved across the stumps doing what looked kind of like Tai Chi. Not that I'd know for sure. I didn't use the plum blossom much. It came with the place, like pretty much everything else had. My ancestors must have been big on the martial arts, what with the killing for hire and all. Not me, though. Wushu so totally wasn't my thing. Still, I shrugged my zip-up off and hopped up onto two of the lowest posts.

In the bright October morning sun, I got the most clear look at Monica I ever had. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup and her hair was pulled back from her face. She looked different. Without the low lights of clubs and parties, without the make-up and perfect hair, the lines and grooves of her face were more obvious. She was older than I had thought she was. Much older. I wouldn't have been surprised if she was pushing forty. She was in clothing that had belonged to Hope--a black linen tunic and trousers-- On her, the outfit was almost too small; it looked clinging, almost suffocating. On me, it would have hung and sagged, hopelessly too big for me to fill out.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

"You're up early," I said.

Monica ignored me, moving around the plum blossom with sure feet and steady arms. I hopped around until I reached the taller poles in the center. Monica sighed and stopped.

"You look like you know what you're doing," I said.

"I've dabbled," she replied coolly. "And you? What were you trained in?"

"Everything." I shrugged. "And kind of nothing at the same time.

I bent backward, easily folding my spine, and rested the palms of my hands on the higher stump behind me. Shifting my weight back, I flipped myself up into a lazy handstand, my spine curved and my legs hanging loosely, bent at the knee. To my left, Monica had crouched down, her feet in dark slippers curving around the flat surface of the stump. She looked comfortable, like balancing on the high, narrow pole was natural and easy for her.

'Dabble', my ass. A dabbler would never be that comfortable on the posts.

Monica's upside-down face regarded me with sleepy, half-closed eyes. The always observant Swallow, watching me for weakness, for a chink in the armor. A way in. I needed her to trust me enough to stay at the Siheyuan. Her sense of self-preservation would probably make her want to run. How could I make her want to stay? By making her trust me enough to think that I had her best interests in mind, I guessed. And for that to happen, I'd have to trust her a little bit too. Problem was, even if you trust a rattlesnake, odds are that it's still going to bite you.

"I'm a gymnast, mostly," I said and straightened my body into a much more Olympics-worthy pose.

"I'm not surprised," Monica replied.

"Really?" I shifted my weight onto one hand and, picking up the other, balanced for a moment before doing a cartwheel onto a lower post.

"You look like a gymnast." Monica smiled – a nasty curvature of lip and blindingly white teeth. "Scrawny."

I laughed. "Was that supposed to hurt my feelings? You'll have to do better than that. And don't think you'll be able to get to me like you did last night." I waggled my index finger at her. "I wasn't feeling well."

Monica smoothed wisps of her platinum hair back from her face with the palms of her hands before straightening up again. She moved gracefully across the stumps until she there was only one between us.

"Why hurt your feelings when I could just make you hurt?" Her voice was low and vicious.

"Why not?"

I faked like I was going to move in and attack her. Monica automatically snapped into a defensive posture, one arm outstretched like the head of a predator ready to strike.

I couldn't help laughing. It was a discipline even I could recognize. "Praying Mantis? Seriously? Do they teach you that at, like, Swallow School or something? 'Cause, man, if that's true, MI-6 has a way better sense of humor than I thought."

"I assure you, they do not." Monica lowered her hand. "There's nothing funny about it at all. I should know; I've been playing this game for longer than you've breathed, little girl."

"Like I don't hear that all the time."

She cocked her head. "How old are you, anyway?"

I grinned. "Nineteen."

"I didn't realize SHIELD had children on the payroll."

The smile slipped off my face. "They don't."

She smirked. "My mistake."

The whole thing was totally getting away from me. I needed her to trust me and, if anything, I was just antagonizing her.

"C'mon," I said, hopping across the posts and down onto the ground.

"Where?"

"Back inside, where, hopefully, the temptation to try to kick my ass won't be so totally irresistible." I picked my jacket up off of the ground and shrugged it back on. "I am going to tell you about myself. And then, hopefully, you're going to tell me what you know about the people I'm looking for."

Behind me, Monica laughed softly. As I set off for the Siheyuan, I heard her follow. Sometimes honestly really is the best policy.

"Why didn't you just take out the two guys who were following you yourself?" I looked over my shoulder at her as I walked. "You obviously could have."

"And all of their creepy little friends, too?"

"But you didn't know about the rest of them." I quirked an eyebrow at her. "Unless you did."

She sighed. "I had some idea, yes."

"Because of what your mark spilled before he died," I prompted her.

"Yes," she said and then fell silent.

"So," I began.

"I thought," she interrupted, "that you were supposed to be telling me your life story in a rather obvious attempt to make me trust you."

"Yeah, that was pretty much the plan," I said as I led her back through the pavilion into the center courtyard.

Weaving through the statuary, I chose a carved bench near the fountain in the center. I sat down sideways, pulling my knees up to my chest and patted the empty space on the bench in front of me. Monica sat facing forward, crossing her legs at the ankle with her hands in her lap. Very ladylike. What a total crock.

"May I call you Jubilation?" she asked suddenly.

"Why not." I smiled. "But only if you tell me what your name really is."

She quirked an eyebrow at me. "Quid pro quo, eh?"

"Quid pro quo, Clarice," I assented, doing my very best Hannibal Lecter impression.

She snorted. "Actually, it's Margaret. Meg, if you like."

"Alrighty then, Meg; let's get down to it." I nodded briskly. "My name is Jubilation Lee. I've been an agent of SHIELD for almost three years. Yeah, they took me on when I was seventeen and that's pretty young. But I signed on with the X-Men when I was eleven, so you can see how they might have had a little bit of confidence in me."

Monica, no, Meg looked at me sharply. "You're a mutant."

"Was. I was a mutant. Now? Not so much."

"I'm sorry." And, to my surprise, she actually looked like she kind of was.

I shrugged. "Whatever. Shit happens."

"So, you were with the X-Men."

"Yup."

"How gauche."

"Totally," I agreed. "I blame it on being a totally impressionable youth. Wolverine was my pretty much my only pal and he said it would be a good idea." I shrugged. "I guess it was. I'm an orphan so it's not like I had any better offers. So, yeah. I was a mutant. I made pretty sparkles and blew shit up. Then I wasn't a mutant. And I had to get a job. So, I did. Um. Let's see. I like horror movies and stupid comedies." I ticked off the statements on my fingers while Meg looked at me with an amused smile and raised eyebrows. "I've seen other dimensions, the astral plane and more than one galaxy. I mostly live in Brooklyn but this is my place, too. It's my ancestral home and I'd like you to stay here for a while. The Siheyuan and the surrounding lands are protected. You'll be safer here than anywhere else I can think of."

I stopped and took a breath. Meg was looking straight ahead, frowning. Her hands were clasped in her lap, her shoulders stiff. Worried, the lines on her face were even more noticeable.

"What?" she snapped, glaring at me.

I shrugged. "I was just thinking that you look different when you're not working."

"You mean that I look old." Meg held up a hand when I tried to demur. "It's alright. I know I'm getting a little long in the tooth for this work. This is probably my last hurrah."

She looked so mournful that I almost felt sorry for her.

"So, what now?" I asked. "Do they give you a desk job? Do you, like, train other Swallows or something?"

She laughed bitterly. "No. When I arrive home, I will be debriefed. And then they'll retire me."

"Retire you? You mean...," I stuttered, horrified. "They're not going to...MI-6 doesn't..."

"Of course not! We're not bloody savages. No, they won't kill me. They'll just deport me. I'll spend the rest of my life where they can keep an eye on me."

"Like a prison or something?"

"Worse." She scowled darkly. "Los Angeles."

I gaped at her. "What?"

"Los Angeles," she explained, "is where spooks go to die. The place is lousy with us."

"No way!" I exclaimed. I'm from L.A.!"

"No, really?" Meg said spitefully, sounding even more like a SoCal airhead than I did. "I, like, totally couldn't tell."

I scowled. "I can go back to the old accent, if you really want me to. I thought we were having a, like, bonding-type honesty thing."

"Let's avoid revisiting your egregious duplicity and my corresponding bout of gullibility, shall we?"

"Why are you so mad about that?" I asked. "You're in the biz. You know how it is."

Meg stood abruptly and went to the fountain. With her back to me, she traced the etchings in the stone.

"I really dropped a bollock on that one," she said quietly.

"Why, Meg?" I asked gently.

Though she was quiet a long while, I didn't press her. Eventually she turned around again. With her lips pursed, she looked like she was in pain.

"The people you're on the watch for, I've heard murmurs of them for a while, now," she said.

"How long is a while?" I asked.

"Since around the time you made your existence known." Meg tucked her arms around her as though she were cold. "I had heard that there was a...faction that was going to sweep first the East and then the rest. That they would right what was wrong with the world. Their methods were harsh but they were for a...higher calling."

"Oh, wow," I murmured.

"Yes, I'm an idiot; I know," she snapped. "But wait, there's more. I heard that they were led by a woman. A Chinese woman who took over the Underground movement and gave it divine purpose."

Meg looked miserable. She hunched her shoulders forward and rubbed her arms.

"I thought it was you," she blurted out.

My mouth opened but no sound came out. For all of this time, she had thought I was some kind of cultish crime messiah?

"As a field operative of MI-6," I finally said, "you passed me information thinking I was the leader of a militant criminal organization?"

"Yes."

"Why?" I asked. "Why would you do that?"

She sucked in a harsh breath. "Because I thought you were better than them. I thought you were better than this. All of this. But you're not. You're just as deep in the muck as the rest of us. Just another soldier in a never-ending, nameless war."

I hugged my knees more tightly. "I'm sorry I disappointed you."

She shook her head. "I'm a fool. It is no one's fault but my own. And to answer your previous question, yes. I will stay here as long as you find convenient. I'm in no hurry to explain this situation to my superiors."

"Good," I said. "You'll be safer her all around, then."

She nodded and looked down at the ground, leaning back against the fountain. I hated to put her through anything else but there was still the matter of the diplomat.

"I need you to tell me about Fadeyushka Melnik," I said.

She looked at me, her eyes sad. "I didn't kill him."

"Do you know who did?" I asked.

"You, I thought," Meg replied sadly.

"No, it wasn't," I said and almost wished she had been correct, if for no other reason than to make her feel better.

"Do you know anything else that might help?" I asked.

She sighed and bowed her head. "You'll want to find Zhiro Zhukov. He's a runner for the people you're looking for. A thug. Not terribly high up the chain, but maybe you can follow his trail to someone more useful."

I nodded. "Okay."

"You should look for him in Madripoor."

"Okay."

"I don't know any more than that."

She stood in front of me, with the fountain splashing behind her, looking like a dog who had just been beaten. Seeing her like that, I felt a wave of revulsion for the world in which I lived. The world that made its inhabitants grasp at anything that might seem meaningful until disappointment and betrayal had stripped away every last trace of hope and humanity.

I had hated Monica. She was everything that was distasteful and immoral and polluted in the spook community. There wasn't a chance in hell that I'd end up like Monica. But, if I wasn't careful, I was going to end up just like Meg.

"I'm going back to my room," she finally said, turning in that direction.

Before she had taken more than a few steps, I stopped her by saying, "Sometimes people just need to have faith in something. Sometimes you need to feel like there's someone worthy to believe in. That doesn't mean that you're weak. It means you're human, Meg. It means you're not a monster."

She stood silently a moment before looking back over her shoulder at me.

"Good luck," she said. "You're going to need it."

Before I could answer her, she was walking quickly away again. I waited until she was gone before I spoke again.

"You can come out now."

Logan seemed to practically materialize from nothing in a shadowy corner of the pavilion. Seating himself on the bench where Meg had been previously, he looked kindly at me and squeezed my knee with his hand. I wondered what he had been up to on my property. There was dirt smudged on his cheek and twigs in his hair. I extended my arm to pick them out; he ducked his head toward me so that I could more easily reach.

"She says Madripoor," I said and flicked a dried up leaf away.

"She says Madripoor," he echoed in reply.

I nodded briefly. "Madripoor it is, then."

Madripoor. Shit.


	16. Chapter 16

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Sixteen

Getting from Huairou to Madripoor took some serious-ass finagling because we had obstacles of a Lifetime-Television-Movie-Event-starring-Tori-Spelling magnitude to overcome. I mean, it's not like we could just hop a plane and glide through customs. For one thing, it is totally impossible for Logan play nice with metal detectors. Plus, how much did I not want to spend a million hours going through airport hell with the Wolverine? He's not exactly what moms throughout the ages have called a 'good traveler'. While all of those problems could probably have been taken care of if I had just flexed a little SHIELD muscle, there was the teensy issue of Logan's persona-non-grata status in Madripoor, too. We needed to slide in without anyone noticing and try to get out before anyone did.

So, we kicked off from China and took the transport to a teensy SHIELD outpost in the Philippines. I didn't put up a fight when Logan assumed he'd pilot again; mostly because I had planned on asking him to, anyway. I needed the time to access any files SHIELD had on Zhukov.

A lot, it turned out. Zhiro Zhukov had his fingers in a lot of pies. Gun-running was just the beginning. There was prostitution and slavery. Drugs. Arson and intimidation. A protection racket. Murder and mayhem. The works. He was a totally well-rounded sleaze.

It was late afternoon when we arrived in the Philippines. It would be dark before we got to Madripoor.

I felt tired. Wrung-out.

Pulling on my stealth suit in the shack that passed for officer's quarters, it was tough to muster up any enthusiasm about the night ahead of me. I sat on a rickety bench in my black hole of a uniform and strapped on my chest and thigh rigs while looking at a collage of pictures on the wall that one of the officers had obviously brought from home. A sunshine-haired little girl wore a blue dress with a fluffy skirt. She wore a pink bathing suit at the beach and brandished a sandy plastic shovel at the camera. A laughing woman with the same sunny hair posed like Vanna White next to a moving truck in front of a cute, little cottage. A beefy, balding man in a SHIELD dress uniform with the little girl in his arms. He beamed at the camera while she tried to remove his cap. They were happy family pictures, taken half a world away. I wondered where they were and what they did while Daddy was stationed in the middle of the Pacific. I doubted they even knew where he really was.

The boat trip from the Philippines was short but it seemed like it took forever. Logan took a cue from me and copied my own broody silence. Only when I saw the hazy lights of the city in the distance did I finally speak up.

"Here," I said, thrusting a tiny earpiece at him.

He grunted. "What's this for?"

"Audio, duh. Put it in. You won't be able to hear me without it."

I tucked my hair behind my ears and pulled my mask over my head. In the hard, blank surface of the mask, my head resembled the end of a big, black Q-Tip. As soon as I had secured it, Logan's head jerked toward me. In the windy open boat, my scent was already gone. The black stealth suit made me pretty damn close to invisible. No body heat. No scent. Completely silent. The mask went on and I practically disappeared.

Logan tucked the earpiece underneath his mask.

"You good?" I asked while he fidgeted with it.

He jumped a little bit and reached back into the mask; I assumed it was to turn the volume down.

"Sorry," I said. "It's auto-set for normal people ears."

"S'ok," he replied. "Hazard of the mutation."

I grinned at him before I remembered that he couldn't see it.

The intel on Zhukov had included an address in the shipping section of Lowtown--a warehouse that was listed as Zhokov's base of operations. I suggested we try there first. Logan suggested that he should try chatting up a source or two of his own, first. I suggested we split up since there was the off-chance that someone could tip Zhukov that we were looking for him. Logan suggested that I stay on the boat and wait for him to come back for me. I suggested he eat shit and die. The agent captaining the boat suggested that we stop having a, too him, one-sided argument and get the hell off of his boat. I turned on him and suggested he replace the stick up his ass with his boat. Which, by the confused look on the agent's face, made me come off like a totally rude mime. Stupid stealth technology.

Logan and I disembarked under agreement that I'd the warehouse and wait for him to get there before going in and checking it out further. When I finally found it, though, I almost wished I had stayed behind and waited for hin.

The warehouse was totally gross. Not that Lowtown's the nicest of areas to begin with, but this place was the seediest of the already seedy. The ground around it was crowded with hypodermics and broken crack pipes; used condoms and bums sleeping off bottles of cheap booze. The building itself was a windowless box made of cinderblock and metal. There was graffiti all over the sides of it. I could read most of the languages it was decorated in--none of them said anything even remotely nice.

A ladder attached to the side of the building with more broken rungs than whole ones brought me up to the roof. There was a raised skylight on one side. Dim light escaped from the individual, tented panes of glass. I peered cautiously through one of them. The windows looked down into a small room--an office from the look of it. The windows were filthy but I could make out file cabinets and stacks of paper scattered throughout. In the middle of the room, a group of men were seated around a round table, playing cards and passing around what looked like a bottle of vodka.

I couldn't tell whether or not any of them was Zhukov.

I bit my lip and contemplated the scene in front of me. Logan had said to wait for him, but what the hell. It's not like I needed hand-holding to break into some ghetto warehouse. I'd probably be faster and less noticeable by myself, anyway.

Looking around the top of the building, I weighed my entry options. Since the building was windowless except for the skylight and that was out unless I was feeling particularly death-wishy. I was pretty sure that the men inside wouldn't be all that appreciative if I just waltzed in the front door. It was a decent set-up, actually. It would be pretty tough for someone to slip in and take the crew unaware.

Tough, but not impossible. Particularly if the breaker and enterer was just a teeny, tiny girly.

People need to breathe, after all.

The ventilation system was a shaft of narrow ducting that went from the roof into the building. I did a joyful little 'Yay for My MultiTool' dance and used the Phillips head screwdriver on it to remove the grate from the mouth of the square, metal ducting. Tucking the tool back into its compartment, I made sure all of my rigs were secure. It would be a serious bummer if something fell out while I was trying to be all sneaky and stuff. Finally, I took a deep, sort of cleansing breath and stuffed myself, feet first, into the tiny passage.

The first right angle turn in the shaft wasn't that bad. The second and third, on the other hand, were gnarly. On the first one, I just lay on my stomach and bent myself over it. Then there was a long section leading into the building that I inched down by bracing my hands and feet against the sides. I finally got to the bottom of it to find that the second and third turns were one after the other, like a sharp, right-angled letter S. I contorted myself to fit around the tiny turns, my joints popping obscenely, while chanting, 'I am the mighty pretzel' over and over.

The interior ventilation was just pretty much a straight shot through the warehouse. I pulled out the first grate I came to and ducked my head out to get the lay of the land. The warehouse was all exposed girders and beams and bars—-rusting metal that held the structure together. There was a bar right below the ventilation shaft; I could easily drop down to stand on it. Once there, though, I found myself pressed up against the wall, without much room to maneuver. Looking around, though, there was another bar just behind and above me.

Uneven bars. Cool.

I huffed a short breath and cracked my neck. Then I bounced up on my toes and jumped up, doing a half turn while catching the bar above me. Going into an immediate kip from there, I was in motion, swinging from bar to bar like I'd never left the LA School of Gymnastics. Doing a Comaneci salto, I almost forgot why I was there. I lost myself in the movement, the strength and the grace.

Until, I did a reverse hecht off of a high suspension bar but misjudged how far away the bar beneath it was. The metal grazed my finger tips and I found myself falling through the air.

It was a really long way to the ground.

Or it would have been if I hadn't totally fortuitously fallen on a wide beam. It caught me diagonally across my midsection, knocking the wind out of me. I ain't gonna lie; it totally hurt. Not as much as landing on the ground would have, though. Wrapping my arms and legs around the metal, I hugged it tightly while my chest heaved and tried to get air back into my lungs. Even after I had regained the basic ability to take a breath, I wasted a little bit of time lying there and gasping some seriously vile swears and hoping that Logan wasn't in close enough range to hear me.

While I was berating myself, Bela Karolyi-style, I heard a whirring, buzzing noise from below me. The automatic shipping door of the warehouse was rolling up. A beat-to-shit black van backed in and, wouldn't you know it, stopped directly beneath me. I thought of a few more choice swearwords and slowly swung myself around so that I could get a better look at what was going on. I was trying to silently find a more comfortable position on the beam when two men in black leather jackets climbed out of the front. The office door swung open with a slam and all five of the card-players came ambling out. I was totally stuck. With seven thugs beneath me, I didn't dare move. Breathing shallowly, I balanced myself on my pelvis. Maximum comfort, let me tell you. At least, digging into the steel, my hips distracted me from how much my ribs ached from the fall. Yay.

The men were greeting each other with slaps on the back. None of them looked like the file photos I had of Zhukov. Damn.

I slowly and carefully pulled a mini-camera out of my chest rig. Snapping away, I hoped Isha really had fixed the audio recording in the suit. They were speaking Russian and my Russian sucks monkey-butt. I caught bits and pieces of conversation--mostly cusswords I had picked up from Sashenka. I'd have to get it translated later.

The driver of the van opened the back and pulled out a crate. Another man stepped forward and pried the top off with a crowbar. It popped up a little bit and the men cheered. One guy stepped forward and kicked off the lid, revealing a lot of individually wrapped packets. Packets that looked like pale bricks.

I sucked in a breath.

It was a really, really huge amount of cocaine. We're talking coke: Tony Montana-style. The lid-kicker grabbed a bag out of the crate and, flourishing it in the air went back to the office with his card-playing buddies trailing behind him. The men from the van unloaded the rest of the crates--it was a really, really, really lot of drugs--and took off again.

Unbelievable. No Zhukov. No useful info. Nothing. Nada. Zip. I beat the snot out of myself to watch some random dude set himself up on a coke bender.

And I still had to get back out of the building. Dammit!

Going out was way tougher than going in. Moving back up to the ventilation shaft, my ribs were totally burning and stabby. Probably cracked. Fabulous. Could I possibly go one day without totally heinously hurting myself? Would I someday be able to complete a job without dangling limbs or spurting blood?

I guess not.

I hoisted myself to the mouth of the ducting and gracelessly fell out onto the ground. Groaning, I creakily rolled over onto my back.

And found myself face to face with the barrel of a gun.

It was a submachine gun with a suppressor mounted on it. Nice piece. Mega-deadly. My hands were raised, palms up, before I could even register who was holding the gun. When I finally did, it completely cracked me up. I giggled helplessly, my ribs totally screaming at me. Silent to my assailant, I must have looked like I was having some kind of wiggly seizure. I couldn't help it, though.

I'd never been so happy to see Natasha Romanova before.

She cocked her head. "SHIELD?"

Palms still out, I slowly reached up, taking extra care to not make any sudden movements. The rounds from her gun might not penetrate the suit, but the force of them would probably kill me anyway. Still giggling, I pulled off my mask.

Natasha lowered her gun and beamed at me. "Jubilee! What are you doing here?"

"Recon," I giggled, still lying on the ground. "You?"

She shrugged. "Oh, this and that."

"This and that?" I finally choked down the giggles.

"Mmmmm," Natasha murmured noncommittally. "Nothing for you to worry about. Though, if you need to talk to any of the charming gentlemen inside, I'd do so presently."

How totally generous of her. Gotta love the professional courtesy.

"I'm looking for Zhiro Zhukov," I said. "I thought he might be here."

Natasha shrugged. "Obviously, he's not."

Obviously. I sighed from my cozy, roof-top resting place. Finding Zhukov was going to be a lot more trouble than I'd thought.

I said, "Well, whatever you're doing, watch yourself. They're on the world's biggest coke-binge."

She smiled a devious smile. "I know."

Of course she knew. Natasha always seemed to know everything about the wide world of crime. She was a total underworld savant--a talent which, come to think of it, could be totally useful.

"Can I pick your brain about something?" I asked her.

She looked around, tapping her trigger finger on the side of the gun she held, before shrugging and saying, "Why not? I'm not on a tight schedule tonight."

Natasha offered me her hand. I took it and pulled myself up with more obvious pain than I was entirely comfortable showing. She raised an eyebrow in query.

I shrugged. "My ribs fought a steel girder and the girder won."

She put her arm around me and, with a kind of touching amount of care, helped me gimp over to the raised casing of the building's ventilation system. I gingerly lowered myself onto it; Natasha sat next to me, all ballerina's grace. I swear, nothing in my life is fair.

Natasha looked up at the sky, her long red hair blowing around her face in the sea-side breeze.

"I think it's beautiful here," she said conversationally. "I've always loved this island."

"Yeah, it's great." I tried to sound agreeable and failed miserably. I totally hated Madripoor. Always had.

"Have they taught you to be so conciliatory, Jubilee?" She turned her pretty face to me. "Or, these days, do you prefer Gong Jing? Oh, you're not one for Madripoor anymore, I know. A Beijing girl, now."

I wasn't surprised that she knew more about my business than she really should have. Much like her grasp on crime, Natasha always did have the spook community by the balls.

"I won't presume to ask why you're doing here," I began.

"And I appreciate not having to tell you to fuck off," Natasha interrupted.

"But I do think it's interesting that you've turned up here on the same day I was pointed towards Zhukov," I finished.

Natasha didn't say anything. She just watched me serenely.

"You're not exactly filled with answers," I finally said.

"You're not exactly asking questions," she replied.

True. I frowned at her before deciding to just come right out with it. I seemed to be winning major points with straight-up honesty lately.

"Have you heard anything about a new organization?" I asked. "A big one. One that would make a lot of people really nervous."

"There. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Natasha patted my leg. She sighed and shook her head. "I hear things often. It seems like everyone is looking for new guns and new rezidentura. These little men, dealing death and hording power." She paused and looked at me.

"How is Nick?" she asked.

"Speaking of men who deal death and horde power?" I asked, smirking.

She nodded.

I shrugged. "He's Nick. Same as always, I guess."

"I'm glad." She sounded relieved. "I can always count on him to stay the course."

Natasha looked so serenely pleased that I wished I could have the same faith in him.

"The thing is, though," I said, getting the conversation back on track, "I think I'm looking for a woman."

Natasha nodded sagely. "Then you're in much more trouble."

"No kidding," I said glumly. "I'm freaked, Tash. I really am. It's bad enough that I feel like I'm just going in circles, but now I've got the walking dead to contend with and I can't even tell you how totally..."

I trailed off. Natasha had seriously flinched when I mentioned the zombies. She jumped up and paced away from me before coming back to stand in front of me with her hands on her hips.

"Walking dead?" she asked. "You've seen, what exactly? Zombies?"

I looked down at the mask in my hands. I didn't want to get into it. I really didn't. But if Natasha knew something, and it seemed like she might, I needed to know what. I pressed my tongue against my teeth. My mouth was Sahara-level dry and, for the first time in a long time, I wished I had some gum.

"Have you heard of Jia Li?" I asked. I looked up at Natasha.

"Witch," she replied. "Died in Malaysia last year in a failed bid to take over the world. But you don't need a briefing on that, do you? After all, it's your hands her blood is on."

I looked out at the harbor. Natasha waited patiently for me to speak again.

"I ran into something that looked a lot like her handiwork," I finally said.

"And you heard that you're looking for a woman and you drew your own conclusions," Natasha finished for me.

I nodded miserably. She sighed and sat down again.

"We all have our monsters, don't we, Jubilee?" she said and then fell quiet.

We sat in silence and watched the ship lights twinkle in the bay.

"I don't think it's Jia Li you're dealing with," she finally said.

"No?"

"No," she replied. "I think it's much worse than that."

I laughed and shook my head. "No offence, Natasha, but who could possibly be worse than her?"

Natasha took my chin in her thumb and forefinger and turned my head towards her. Her mouth was set in a grim line. She looked my face over before she finally answered my question with one word, one name -

"Elektra."


	17. Chapter 17

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Seventeen

"Elektra," I repeated. "But Elektra's dead."

"No, she ain't," I heard from behind me.

I looked over my shoulder, wincing at the twist, to see Logan crouched on the roof behind where we sat. Distracted by the pain in my side and Natasha, I hadn't noticed him arrive. He was amazingly stealthy, even in the totally spangley new uniform.

Natasha, glancing casually at the man behind us, raised an eyebrow at me. "Well, well, well. Back together again, are you?"

Logan grunted at her. It was a totally sour kind of caveman noise. It's kind of amazing how he can actually convey meaning with noises like that. Right then, I was pretty sure that he wasn't exactly pleased to see Natasha. Had I been less interested in the fact that Elektra was, supposedly, still alive, while I had been under the impression that she was three years worth of dead, I might have been more interested in the totally tense moment they were having.

"What do you mean, Elektra's not dead?" I said, ignoring the hostility.

Natasha stood without answering, her body shifting from relaxed and friendly to fluid and predatory.

"Working for SHIELD again, are you? Did you forgive and forget, Wolverine?" Natasha smiled nastily. "No pun intended, of course."

Logan snarled and, rising up from his crouch, he was in front of Natasha in one burst of action.

"You always were Fury's man." He tilted his chin up at her.

In boots, Natasha was way taller than he was. She used it to her advantage, scowling down at him like a school mistress. "There are debts owed to him that I can't ever repay."

"Is this," he said, pointing back and forth between the two of them, "really about debts?"

"No, Logan. This is about loyalty. Something you've proven you know nothing about." Natasha's voice was dark and dangerous. "Perhaps you ought to remember everything the Colonel has done for you."

Logan seethed. "Perhaps you ought to remember everything the Colonel has done to me."

I raised my hand like I was in Algebra class. "Not to, like, interrupt the swell reunion you've got going on," I said over them, "but I'd kind of like to know about the whole Elektra not-so-much-dead thing."

"You don't know," Natasha said to me. Turning back to Logan, she continued, "She doesn't know. You haven't told her anything."

"Don't put it all on me, Widow," Logan growled at her. "Fury ain't told her nothing, either. And he's had a hell of a lot more opportunity to."

"Unlike you, he has clearance concerns." Though Natasha's smile grew wider, it didn't get any nicer. "You know what I think, Wolverine?"

"I don't give a shit what you think," he said, spittle flying out of his mouth with the vehemence of his words.

Natasha just kept smiling, serene and cruel. She stood toe-to-toe with Logan, totally confident that he couldn't hurt her. I struggled to my feet, hoping I wouldn't have to break up a superhero fight with totally owie ribs.

"I think you're worried she'll take his side," Natasha said very quietly. "Is she the last person left standing to care about you rather than what you can do for her? Are you afraid that your last little bastion might be a Fury loyalist, too? That she, too, might find him the worthier. That she, too, might love him just a little more than she loves you?"

I gaped at her because, shit, I may work for an agency, but ain't no one going to use me as a weapon. Logan's shoulders were hunched, his neck extended so far forward that I could see the tendons standing out beneath the fabric of his costume. He was so peeved, he practically had hackles. He looked like he was ready to stab her in the face.

"Excuse me!" I said as loudly as I dared. "She's standing right here, you know. And, while the whole fighting-with-your-former-friends thing is totally fascinating in a _Laguna Beach_ sort of way, she would really like to know what you meant when you said, 'Elektra's not dead'."

"Elektra isn't dead," Natasha said without taking her eyes off of Logan. "She's very much still alive."

I made an irritated noise. "Since when?"

Natasha smirked. "Since she was never entirely dead to begin with."

"What the fuck?" I practically howled. "Doesn't anyone ever just die and stay dead?"

"You're one to talk," she snarked.

I took the high road and ignored that. "So, what? What happened to her? Where is she? Why did I think she was dead? Does everyone know she's still alive?"

"How much do you know about the Hydra attack?" Logan cut in.

"Which one?" I asked.

"The big one."

I shrugged. "Helicarrier went boom. Colonel got spiffy new bits and pieces. Which, by the way, they only do for the VIPs. The rest of us have to heal like normal people and suffer without spleens or kidneys or whatever. That's pretty much it." I shrugged. "What am I missing?"

"It wasn't just Hydra who attacked," Logan said.

I was surprised. "It wasn't? No one ever mentioned..."

"They wouldn't have. Not exactly a shining moment for the ol' hovering soldier boys."

"Then who...?" I trailed off when Natasha shoved her palm out at me, wiggling her fingers.

Watching her fingers, my eyes unfocused and I was somewhere else entirely. Somewhere I couldn't exactly remember. But I remembered warmth and a voice and, suddenly, the words the voice was saying...

"The hand has five fingers," I said softly. "Each of which can exist independently..."

"Where'd you hear that?" Logan interrupted, jerking me back to reality.

I took a shallow, hitching breath, shook my head and shrugged.

"Sounds like Hand dogma." Natasha's green eyes were narrowed. "Quite a coincidence."

"Yeah, quite a coincidence," I repeated and then frowned. "The Hand? But they're not..."

She cocked her head and gave me a totally brutal 'duh' look.

"Oh, they are sometimes kind of...dead, aren't they?"

"Kind of, yes," she said. "Frequently."

"So, that's it?" I asked. "She's just off somewhere putting the Hand back together and no one knows where or is trying to stop her or anything?"

Logan grunted. "Maybe she don't need to be stopped."

"You would think that, wouldn't you?" Natasha said, her voice acid-lace. "After all, they did make you into one of them, didn't they?"

"Oh my God, Natasha, did you eat a heaping bowlful of _Bitchies_ for breakfast this morning, or what?" I exclaimed. "Can you ease up on the Wolverine-bashing for, like, thirty seconds, so that I can wrap my head around the Elektra thing."

I ground my teeth. Could Elektra really be the one we were looking for? If it did turn out to be her then it wasn't looking so great for my sanity. I'd have to tell someone and they'd either slap me back on desk duty or discharge me altogether. Between my worst nightmare come to life and spending some serious-ass time on a Thorazine drip, my options weren't looking so hot.

"Do you really think Elektra might be involved?" I quietly asked Natasha. "It's not just, like, a grudge thing, right? 'Cause I know you've never been totally fond of her."

She huffed indignantly. "Do you really think I'd let my personal feelings cloud my judgment on something like this?"

I looked pointedly at Logan, still glowering from several paces away, and back to her.

Natasha shook her head. "It's not the same thing. Not at all. With him, it's not me I'm angry for."

"Nick doesn't need you to be angry for him."

"But he does need to have someone on his side." She raised an eyebrow meaningfully.

I sighed. "I'm not on anyone's side, Tash."

"Maybe that's part of your problem." Her voice was low, as though she meant what she said to be private, even though she knew Logan could still hear her. "Maybe it's time for you to make a choice, once and for all."

I rubbed my forehead tiredly. There was no way to explain to her that there wasn't a choice to be made. That I was never going to be able to separate myself entirely from whom, from what, I used to be. In the same way, I couldn't deny who I had become.   
Natasha was smile was kind; she liked me and I liked her, but she couldn't seem to recall what it was like to have conflicted loyalties. Maybe she just didn't want to let herself remember that it isn't always about finding the bad guys and slaughtering them. Maybe she was the bad guy. Maybe there weren't any bad guys at all.

All of the moral ambiguity was totally giving me a headache.

"I think," she finally said, 'that it's time for you to go so that I can get back to work."

I nodded.

Watching her move back toward the windows, I couldn't help saying, "Not everything is what you think it is, Natasha. You're not always right."

The look on her face when she turned back to me was bitterly sad. "Perhaps. But then too much of the time, I am."

Natasha stomped on the skylight, smashing out the largest pane with the heel of her boot and, with a last nod to me and absolutely no thought to the distance from the roof to the ground inside, leapt through it. By the sounds of muffled gunfire and men screaming, she hit the ground without the same splatter that I would have made had I tried the same thing.

"Wish they'd give me some of whatever they pump her up with," I muttered, pulling my mask over my head again.

Of course, Logan heard me, anyway. "Nah, darlin'. You really don't."

I snorted weakly. "Why not? It'd be nice to be able to jump off of buildings and not break my damn neck."

He grinned rakishly at me. "Who needs that when you got me around?"

Logan wrapped one arm around my waist and, with the same sort of disregard for height that Natasha had, jumped off the edge of the building. I squeaked when he hit the ground. His arm around my ribcage felt like an iron vise that had been coated with fiery, flaming death.

What I mean is that it hurt. Like, a lot.

Logan, hearing me gasp over the earpiece, abruptly let me go. I staggered a little bit, my right hand automatically holding my left side.

"What happened?" he asked, frowning.

"It's nothing," I said, catching my breath and straightening up again. "I hurt my side a little, I think."

Logan crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. Somehow, I don't think he actually believed it was nothing. He shook his head at me, as though to say that we'd discuss it later and indicated that I should follow him.

It seemed insane that I was hobbling through the backstreets of Lowtown with Logan. Like I had been shot into an alternate dimension where I never grew up and would spend the rest of forever wandering around Madripoor looking like a teenaged bag-lady in the same stupid clothes I'd packratted in Australia.

It had started to rain when we paused in the safety of a shadowed alley to let two members of the corrupt Madripoor Enforcement Agency pass unaware. The rain made everything seem greasy and smell like piss and decay. I leaned one shoulder carefully against the crusty wall. Above my head, someone had spray-painted really filthy graffiti in Malay. At my feet, there was a drying pool of vomit and a days-gone dead cat. Two large rats snaked around my ankles -- one to gobble down the vomit, the other to snack on the cat.

Madripoor. What a glamorous vacation destination.

It was seeing Logan's nose wrinkle at the smell of the rotting city and watching his lip twitch itself into a snarl at the sight of the crooked cops that reminded me that he hadn't asked protested Natasha's mafia massacre. Logan never missed a beat, but he didn't even question the appearance that she was going to eliminate our most recent lead.

"Hey," I said. "What'd you find out?"

He raised his hand a bit to indicate that we needed to wait another moment. Just because only he could hear me didn't necessarily mean that we could carry on a two-sided conversation.

Finally, he quietly said, "What do you mean?"

"Earlier today," I replied. "What did you find out? Because you obviously knew that Zhukov wasn't in the building while Natasha was going all Scarface on it."

Logan didn't answer. He just jerked his head toward the street and said, "Keep moving."

I followed him diagonally across and back into another alley. We skirted a row of trashcans with garbage stacked high on them and found ourselves in a long passage lined with sagging cardboard box houses. The bums didn't even give us a second look. I guess in that part of town it was better to not notice anything.

"Well?" I demanded, close on his heels.

"Zhukov's dead," Logan said, stepping over a prostrate form. The man wore a jaunty sailor cap and there was a bottle of rotgut leaking over his chin and chest.

I stopped in the middle of the alley. "Of course he is," I said sarcastically. "Of course. Because nothing in this whole, stupid mission could possibly go as planned. Or not planned, in this case, because there pretty much wasn't any plan other than, like, 'talk to Zhukov'. Which, even as non-plans go, is pretty weak. But, since this is something I'm involved in, a non-plan is totally certain to fail as spectacularly as a regular full-on plan."

Logan kept walking, totally ignoring me.

I followed him, testing how deep a breath I could take. "How do you even know he's for sure dead? Did you, like, see the body or something?"

Logan sighed. Lips twisted into an irritated scowl, he shot me a look that clearly said that this wasn't a discussion we could have in the middle of a crowded alley that smelled like rotting food and human feces and I should probably just shut up and follow him.

I shut up and followed him.

He went around a corner into a passageway that was even narrower and dirtier than the previous one. Stopping at a rusting metal door, he produced a key –- though from where in that costume, I totally don't know -– and unlocked the door. It squealed and moaned at the imposition of opening.

Inside the building, there was a hallway lit by flickering fluorescent lights and narrow stairs. Lot and lots of narrow stairs. Logan pulled the door shut behind us and started up them. I barely suppressed a groan and dragged my ass up behind him.

It took way more effort than it should have to find myself in a dingy third-floor walk-up that seemed to have been decorated by someone who took both shabby-chic and minimalism really seriously.

"These your new digs?" I asked, looking around while pulling my mask off and trying to smooth out my stealth-helmet hair.

He grunted in response.

"Nice," I snorted. "Very 'another hungry mouth to feed in the ghetto'."

"It's safe enough," he said, making for the door. "Stay here. I'll be back soon."

I held up my hand, palm out. "Hold up there, chief. First of all, you are so not leaving me here while you go out and cowboy. And second, how the hell do you know that Zhukov croaked?"

He seemed skeptical. "You really think you can take another hit tonight?"

"Fine. Whatever. What about Zhukov? How'd you find out about him?"

"I went to see Tyger Tiger." He leaned back against the door.

"Well, sure." I rolled my eyes. "It must have been a very busy night."

Logan still had his mask pulled over his head. I couldn't see his eyes when he said, "She said that Agent Kinjo's dead, too."

He could certainly see mine, though. Sure, he had a front seat view when I totally embarrassed myself by tearing up. I squeezed my eyes shut. Suddenly, my legs were weak. I felt every bit as exhausted and beaten-up as I had become over the past few days. With my eyes still shut, I heard Logan cross the creaking, ancient floor me. He gently took my right elbow in his hand to steady me. I dropped my chin and leaned my forehead against his broad chest.

"Shit," I whispered.

"Did you know him?" he asked softly.

His hand rubbed soothingly over the back of my head.

Shaking my head against his chest, I said, "Nah. Doesn't matter though. He was one of us."

"SHIELD."

I looked up at him. He had pulled his mask back. I appreciated the gesture. Looking at his bare face I could see that he was concerned.

"Yeah, he was SHIELD. And, before White Day, he was a low-level precog'."

Logan nodded. He understood. I hadn't known him, but he'd been part of the club. Kinjo was one of the decimated, just like me.

"He was a sleeper," I continued. "He'd been underground for five years; when he called the phone bank, it was the first time he'd made any contact since going down. You heard the recording, right?" I was embarrassed by the hitch in my own voice. "Something really awful must have happened to him."

Logan's hand tightened on my elbow. His other hand felt hot where it still rested on the back of my neck. The room suddenly seemed too small, too warm and I realized how close to me Logan really was. Unlike most men, looking down at me, his face was only a few inches from mine. My chest tightened, my breath giving out in a way that was only a little bit related to the pain in my ribs, 'cause I may be young, but I can still tell when a guy wants to kiss me.

And I was suddenly totally certain that Logan did.

More than that, I wasn't entirely sure that I didn't want him to.

Chew on that one, Jubilation.

Thankfully, my mind was saved from being totally blown when an even more unpleasant question came to me.

"How did she know?" I asked. "How'd Tyger know that Kinjo was dead, too."

Even as I asked the question, I already knew the answer. The changed look on his face was enough of an explanation.

"Because he was undercover within her group, wasn't he?" I made a face like I had just bit into something really sour. "Did she have him killed?"

Logan didn't answer. Dropping his hands to his sides, he looked at the ground.

"She had him killed," I hissed at him. "She had an Agent of SHIELD murdered."

"To be fair, darlin', Kinjo was planted in her organization. Ain't exactly a show of good faith by your boss." He sighed. "Besides, she said didn't know he was SHIELD."

I snorted. "And you believed her?"

"She wasn't lying. I'd know if she was. She was angry as fuck. Worried, too. But she wasn't lying. She said he went bat-shit crazy. Tried to kill her. Managed to take out eight of her own people before she took him down."

I laughed harshly at that. "She killed him herself."

"She had to do it."

I stepped back abruptly, putting distance between us. "I have to report this."

Logan sighed. "Wish you wouldn't."

"I have to," I raised my voice, clenching my fists at my sides. "I can't keep this quiet!"

"Can't?" he asked quietly. "Or won't?"

Before I could formulate a response, Logan pulled his cowl back over his head. Without looking back, he slipped out the door, leaving me alone in his strange hovel. I stood there, staring at the closed door and wondered if I had lost my freakin' mind.

I was actually considering not reporting back that Tyger Tiger had killed an undercover Agent of SHIELD.


	18. Chapter 18

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Eighteen

I stood there in the dingy, little flat, clenching and unclenching my fists, and trying to figure out what I should do. Should I stay there and wait for Logan to come back? Should I go out without him and make my way back to SHIELD. Should I tattle on Tyger Tiger? Or would that make my current mission that much harder?

It had been a long time since I'd had my loyalties really put to the test. It felt like it was a test that, no matter what I chose, I'd fail.

Finally, sighing, I shook my head and pulled my gloves off. I'd stick it out for a while, for the sake of the mission, and see what I could learn. It wasn't like Tyger was going anywhere. Madripoor was her life. And it wasn't like I could do anything else for Kinjo. No, the best I could do for him would be to figure out the puzzle he'd left me with. Figure out what drove him crazy and put a stop to it.

The flat didn't have much going for it. It wasn't exactly filthy, but it wasn't clean, either. It was mostly the dusty staleness of disuse. My apartment in Brooklyn was in similar shape. There was one window that the outside of which had been all but blacked out by the city's grime and pollution. The bed was a thin mattress on a metal frame, just high enough off the floor to discourage any creepy-crawlies from nibbling on you in your sleep. A rickety card table sat in the center with two rusty, folding chairs at it. In one corner there was a closed trunk with typical Logan clothing -- jeans, undershirts, a few flannels -- neatly folded and stacked on top of it. In the other corner, there were books with titles in Japanese, English and Chinese, stacked as high as my waist. Logan had gone on one of his book binges here. He used to leave the mansion and hole up somewhere, doing nothing but reading. For weeks, sometimes months, he'd disappear. It was like he had to hibernate.

Most of the time, I'd get letters from him. Sometimes they were long. He'd write about the roads he rode on, the books he read, the people he watched. Other times they were short –- just a postcard to check in. And then sometimes he wouldn't write at all and I'd worry. He'd come back eventually, darker and quieter than he'd left. There was an unspoken don't-ask-don't-tell rule about those times.

What sort had this been, I wondered, and when had it happened? Was it before White Day or after -- after he had regained his memories and had taken on the world, burning bridges and villages and friendships? How long had he hidden himself away there with books full of stories less terrifying than his own?

It had been a long time since he'd sent me a letter. I hadn't realized that I missed it.

The apartment had a bathroom that was as unused as the rest of the place. The bath was full of spider webs; and there was a crumbly, dried-up bar of soap on the sink. The faucet spat brown water that smelled enough like blood and sewage that I gagged a little bit. After a minute, I gave up on it running clear enough for me to splash my face with water.

Wandering back into the main room, I was already impatient. I grabbed the first book I saw off of his stacks. It was _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. I snorted.

The chairs would have been uncomfortable even without my aching ribs. I opted for the bed, instead. Not that that was much better. I shifted this way and that, trying to find a position that didn't make my ribs scream. Curled up on my side, I was as comfortable as I was going to get. I opened the book and began to read. It didn't take long for exhaustion to catch up with me; I was only a few pages into the book when I nodded off.

I slept and it was pure, black terror. There was a darkness pulling at me; tendrils like dark wisps of smoke wrapped around me, snaking up my legs, filling my nose and mouth until my eyes were black and I breathed smoke. My limbs felt strange and heavy and when I looked down at my hands, it was like they weren't really mine.

I woke with a gasp, my ribs throbbing unpleasantly. How long I'd been out, I wasn't sure. Outside, the storm had worsened; the wind was howling; the rain hit the window in sheets.

"Pleasant dreams?"

I pulled myself into a more-or-less upright position and rubbed my tired eyes. "Not even close."

Logan had returned while I slept, though not long ago, by the look of it. Though he'd changed into jeans and a flannel shirt, his skin was still damp, his hair dripping. He looked me up and down, certainly scrutinizing my disheveled appearance.

"You look beat," he confirmed it.

"You look like you can fuck off." I tried to smooth my hair down, grunting at the pain of raising my arm above my head.

Logan snorted. "Brought you something."

He dropped a brown paper bag next to me. The bag had a familiar logo on it. A comforting logo. The logo of an old friend.

I squealed. "You brought me McBurgers?"

He shrugged. "Thought you might be hungry."

I opened the damp, greasy bag. There had to be twenty burgers in it. "I think this might be the nicest, grossest thing you've ever done for me."

"Brought you some Vicodin, too." He tossed a brown, semi-opaque bottle on the bed.

I picked it up and shook it; the bottle was half full. "Make that the nicest, grossest, enabling-est thing." Popping the cap off, I swallowed one dry. "You are a total prince among men, dude."

Logan dragged one of the folding chairs over next to the bed and dropped into it. "What, no fight about whether or not you need it?"

"Nope. Because I do."

If there was one thing SHIELD had taught me, it was that painkillers were a valuable commodity.

I pulled one of the burgers out and unwrapped it. It was lukewarm and probably hours old, but I was starving and it looked heavenly.

"How the hell did you manage to hurt yourself?" Logan pulled out a burger for himself. "I wasn't gone for that long."

I shrugged. "In that warehouse. I was moving around in the rafters and...slipped. Luckily, my ribs made friends with a girder, saving me from totally going splat on the floor."

He ate his burger in two fast bites and reached for another. "Oh, sure. Lucky."

"Where'd you go?"

"Back to Tyger's. Had some business to take care of."

"Did you tell her to clear out?"

Logan pretended to be too busy inhaling his second burger to look at me. "Nope."

"That sure of me, huh? You're that sure I'm going to just roll over and do whatever you want me to."

He stood up abruptly and went back to the table. From it he retrieved a large, manila envelope that was stuffed so full it bulged.

"No." Logan tossed down the envelope. It landed right in front me. "I'm counting on you to see the bigger picture."

I ignored it, looking up at him. "A bigger picture than the betrayal of a fellow officer, my employer and my boyfriend, all at once?"

Logan winced. "Don't call him that."

I shrugged. "Why? That's what he is."

"Because the man's over ninety-years-old. He ain't a boy-anything."

I snorted. "Yeah, well, I'm nineteen, so I get to have a boyfriend."

Logan roughly rubbed his forehead, visibly pained by my insistence on Nick's title. It was kind of mean of me to, I guess, and, to be perfectly honest, a little bit calculating. I had to wonder why exactly it made him so uncomfortable. Was it the age difference? Was it that Nick was my superior officer? Was it the super-secret grudge-match they had going on? Or did it have something to do with earlier that night -- how he had looked at me and the way he had gripped my arms?

"Why does it always have to be like this?" I asked. "Why does it always have to be me against you, one side against the other?"

Logan ran his hands through his hair; it was shaggy, longer than it used to be. "I don't know, but it does."

"I'm tired of choosing sides."

My head was starting to swim from the painkiller. It was probably too high a dosage; it had been dumb of me to not break it in half.

"You going to look in that envelope, or what?"

"Depends," I said. "What's in it?"

Logan leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "The life and times of Agent Kinjo."

"It fits in an envelope?" I giggled again. Oh, yeah. Definitely too strong.

Logan raised one bushy brow. "Maybe I should've waited to give you that Vicodin until after you went through that."

My head was starting to feel heavy; I lay back down on the bed, wiggling uncomfortably.

"Prob'ly," I murmured. "Tyger gave you that to bring back here? Why would she do that? Seems like it would have too much information about her in it."

"More why he was there in the first place, I think. You probably already know all about that, though..." Logan trailed off at the end of the statement.

"I don't, really. Bits and pieces, yeah. But not the whole thing." I smiled sheepishly. "I don't have the clearance for it. I'm not exactly a top level agent."

"That makes two of us." He paused for a moment before grinning wolfishly, his unease dissipating for a moment. "Kitty says your file's heavy classified."

I frowned sleepily. "How'd she know?"

"Tried to access it."

"Really?" I lifted my head in surprise. "What for?"

"Don't know." He shrugged, leaning back in the chair with his hands behind his head. "Don't know what she's doing half the time."

I giggled, my head dropping again. "No shit."

Over the years that I knew her, I had found that I really kind of liked Kitty. Once she stopped treating me like she was the prototype and I was her replacement, I realized that she was actually kind of fun. And part of her charm was her total nerd-quest for knowledge. I guess it went with the whole genius thing. Luckily, that was a disease with which I'd never been afflicted.

"I see her on the news all the time," I said. "They've been getting more coverage than the Fantastic Four lately."

Logan shrugged. "All part of Cyke's big plan to make the world like us again."

I snorted. "That seems kind of futile.

"Can't let the dream die."

I didn't bother pointing out that the dream died three years ago for most of us. Instead, I rolled over onto my uninjured side, pulling my legs up as much as my ribs would comfortably allow. Tucking my hands under my face, I watched Logan from behind half-raised lids, my mind hazy from the drugs. He cleared the debris from the McBurgers off of the bed, taking the envelope with him as well and putting it back on the table.

Finally, clean-up done, he stood in front of the window, as though he could actually see out of it.

"He's too old for you," he said quietly.

"You're one to talk," I replied without thinking, my words slurring a little bit.

There was a long, pregnant pause before he said, "I'm too old for you."

"You're too old for everyone, dude."

"I ain't arguing that."

"Well, that's just great," I said, exasperated. "Maybe you two should start hitting up the retirement communities together. I'll bet you'd be a huge hit with the Septuagenarian set."

"I can't believe you can come up with _Septuagenarian_ when you're high as a kite," he said.

I frowned, vaguely insulted. "Hey, I'm not just some dumb mallrat, anymore."

"You were never were, darlin'." He spoke quietly as though he almost didn't want me to hear him.

He stood in front of the window, his arms crossed over his chest. I watched him there; he looked lonely. It was such a difference from the way he used to be. Logan used to look for an excuse to go off by himself. Now, I had the feeling that he hated to be alone. Maybe that was why he kept himself so busy, had joined so many teams.

It was getting his memory back that did it, I decided through the Vicodin fog. Memories make people lonely for what they don't have anymore. Maybe we're all better off not knowing.

"What now?" I finally asked.

He grunted. "You sleep. I wait."

"Wait for what?"

Logan nodded at the window. Pale morning light had begun to creep in through the grime.

"For dark," he said, turning away from the window.

I fought the drugged sleep, struggling to keep my eyes open.

"Go to sleep, darlin'," he said, picking up the book I'd abandoned earlier and reclaiming the chair next to me. "I'll be here when you wake up."

So, I did. And when I woke up, he was.


	19. Chapter 19

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Nineteen

When I woke up, it was full daylight. I was still curled on my side, as I'd been when I fell asleep. Unfolding my limbs, my joints protested the hours of total motionlessness. The Vicodin I'd taken had worn off while I slept and, though my side ached, it wasn't unbearable. There probably wasn't anything broken. For that, I was totally thankful. I mean, I've got a pretty high tolerance for pain, but it's still tough to rock and roll with broken bones.

Logan wasn't sitting next to me anymore. Instead, he was hunched over the rickety card table, looking intently at something he'd spread across. It looked like little, scribbled on scraps of paper.

Logan, himself, was looking rough. There were empty beer bottles set around him. His hair was greasy and spiked out as though he'd been running his hands through it compulsively. As I watched, he reached up and absently clutched at it. I giggled.

He glanced up from the table. "Mornin', sunshine."

I snorted.

Logan flashed his sharp teeth at me. "Sleep well?"

"Not bad. Better than I have in a while."

"How's the side?"

"Sore," I admitted.

Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I stood slowly, testing what hurt and how much. My left ankle had a twinge, though from what I couldn't remember; my knees were sore from hitting the pavement on the Expressway; the side definitely had a dull throb going on; and my underwear was totally stuffed into my butt-crack. The stealth suit was so not meant to be slept in. Wriggling around, I tried to readjust them, thinking piteously of my nice, comfy fatigues back at the SHIELD base. Logan watched me, obviously amused by my discomfort.

"What?" I snapped. "Like you've never had a costume malfunction. If I had a quarter for every time you've had your clothes burned off by Sentinels or space dragons or whatever, I could buy myself a uniform that doesn't bind."

Logan shrugged. "Shi'ar just don't make indestructible fabric like they used to."

"Sure. Blame the alien technology for your own carelessness."

Sitting down on the bed again, I glanced over the floor, inspecting it for cleanliness. It wasn't exactly spotless, but it didn't look like I'd catch flesh eating disease from it. Encouraged, I gingerly pulled off my booties one at a time. They made a limp pile on the floor, deceptively innocuous. Looking at them like that, you'd never think they could stop a bullet or insulate me from bitter cold or brutal heat.

Wiggling my toes, my feet were sore and stiff. The one with the sore ankle was puffy, the top of it bluish with bruising. I sighed. Nineteen years old and I was totally falling apart.

Trying not to limp too obviously, I got up and went to the stack of flannels on the trunk. I shook the top one out and held it up. It was big enough to fit five of me. Whatever. Beggars can't be choosers, right?

"What're you doing?" Logan asked.

"Borrowing this. I gotta get out of this thing before I can pull my underwear out of my mouth. So, unless you still have underage sidekicks leaving their shit around, this is my only option."

"Sorry. Lost your stuff when my last place exploded."

I blinked. "You kept my stuff?"

Looking uncomfortable, he half shrugged with one shoulder. "Didn't seem right to just throw it out."

I quickly changed the subject to one that would be a hell of a lot safer – explosions. "Your last place blew up?"

At that, he grinned. "Viper don't appreciate my having a presence here anymore. She likes to send a message when she catches wind of it."

"Real sweetheart, that one."

"You're tellin' me. You ain't been hitched to the bitch."

We both fell silent at that. Last time I'd been in Madripoor with Logan had neither started nor ended well for either of us. It had been one of only two occasions I'd been mad enough to ditch him. Mad enough to stay that way for a while. Of course, even that couldn't compare to the aftermath of White Day.

"So," I finally said, still clutching the shirt. "What're the odds of girl finding something to drink that isn't either booze or sewage?"

There was a tall paper bag on the other chair that, I guessed, had carried his beer. Logan pulled out a bottle of water from it and tossed it to me. I caught it in midair with my free hand. I looked up at him hopefully.

"Toothbrush?"

Logan shot me a totally scornful look.

"Right. Fresh breath, totally not high on the list of badass priorities."

I left Logan in the main room, shutting the flimsy bathroom door behind me. Leaning against it, I took a shaky breath and wondered how my already weird life had managed to get even weirder. After a moment, I remembered what I was in there to do.

Peeling my stealth suit off without making some part of me hurt was a total bitch. My ribs were by far the worst of it. There was a blue patch of bruising over my side that deepened to lurid purple over the too-prominent ridges of my ribs. I swore quietly. Doc Makris was going to give me hell when I got back.

I'd lost weight I couldn't afford to lose. Beneath skin that was too thin and too pale, the ropey, flexible muscles in my arms and legs were visible in detail. The ribs in my sternum were clearly defined. My knees were knobby and scabbed. The calluses on the palms of my hands were rough and peeling. The foot was probably a stress fracture; I'd had them before. Over all, I was a mess. I was glad there wasn't a mirror in the bathroom; I didn't want to know how awful I really looked.

Logan's shirt was colossally too big for me. It hung down past my knees, a tent of fabric over my body. I rolled the sleeves up past my hands; my wrists looked like brittle twigs sticking out of the rolls of fabric. I felt ridiculous, but at least my underwear was now comfortably arranged outside of any body cavities, where they belonged.

Finally, I used some of the bottled water to splash my face and scrub the crust out of my eyes. Running my damp fingers through my hair, I patted down the wispy locks, hoping that it would be enough to tame them without a comb. I swished more of the water around in my mouth and spit into the yellowed sink, down the rusting drain. It was hard to believe that just a few days before I'd been in Nick's bathroom, doing nearly the same thing. It seemed a million years away from where I was. I felt like a different person, almost. Like a different girl. Though it hadn't seemed like it at the time, that girl had been sure and strong, certain of her place in the world. Certain of the work she did, of who her friends were, who she loved.

I wasn't certain of anything anymore, least of all the man in the next room and where he fit into my life. Hell, after the last few days, I hardly knew if my head was my own.

Logan took one look at me when I came out of the bathroom and his lips twitched, his nostrils flaring as he tried to suppress a guffaw.

"Honestly," I complained, tossing my limp suit on the bed. "It's like I live in a permanent state of déjà vu with repeated humiliations."

Brow raised, Logan looked at me questioningly.

I sighed and said, "There's never anything off the rack that fits me. So, it's like this: my transport is blown up and I have to buy an orange tee shirt that says _I'm Goofy for Orlando_ on it, because I'm the size of a tall ten-year-old boy. I make it back to base – battered and almost blown up – and it's 'Oh, let's laugh at Agent Lee', because it's, like, so funny that I'm wearing a kid's shirt with a cartoon dog on it. Happens all the time. They don't even think about why I look totally ridiculous or how hard it is to find clothes that don't make me look like I'm playing dress-up with grown-up people clothing."

"Preachin' to the choir, darlin'. You got any idea how hard I am to fit?"

I grinned. "Hadn't really thought much about it, no."

"Hypocrite," Logan teased.

We shared a moment of easy camaraderie -- recognition of the common trials of the stature-challenged. Until, shaking his head a little bit, he turned back to his original focus – the scraps of paper on the table. He pulled more out of the envelope he'd brought back from Tyger's, laying them out on the flat surface.

"So," I said, coming to stand behind him. "Any ideas on what we're looking at?"

Logan grunted. I assumed that was a negative. Not that I thought I'd have any more luck than he had. The papers varied in size, from nearly whole pieces of lined notebook paper to smaller, crumpled bits of white paper. There were pieces of newspaper –- ripped off sections of advertisements and headlines from a variety of papers. There were even cocktail napkins, stained from the cups that had sat on them.

I leaned over his shoulder for a closer look. Logan smoothed out the few fragments he had just taken from the envelope. They were all different -- no piece the same –- the only common factor their uniform illegibility.

Why did everything have to be a puzzle? I huffed an irritated sigh.

Logan grimaced.

"What?" I asked. "See something?"

"Nah," he said, making a face. "I'm just rethinkin' the merits of that toothbrush."

I clapped a hand over my mouth, muffling my voice and took a step back. "Someday -- and you're totally not going to see it coming -- but someday, I'm going to kick you. Hard."

Logan leaned back in his chair, holding his hands up in open challenge. "Go ahead. It'll hurt you more than it'll hurt me."

"Not unless you have adamantium-plated nuts."

He barked out a short laugh. "Why don't you try it and see?"

I narrowed my eyes at the challenge. "You are annoying."

"Right back atcha, darlin'."

Giving him the evil eye, I grabbed the envelope and found the cleanest looking patch of open floor. Folding myself crossed-legged on the unfinished wood, I pulled the rest of the papers out of the over-sized envelope. Smoothing out the crumpled ones, I lay them flat in front of me. I spent a long time looking at them individually, giving each a careful examination.

"What's that?" Logan asked, breaking my long-held concentration.

For a moment, I looked intently at the papers in front of me before I realized that he was gesturing at me and not the scraps in front of me.

I hadn't noticed that the tails of the shirt had parted enough to showcase a considerable amount of my left leg. There was a wide, clean scar, pale with age, marring the skin on my thigh. Closer to my hip than my knee, it didn't bother me like the bullet scar on my shoulder blade did. Too high for a shorts or a miniskirt to reveal, it wasn't prohibitive to anything I might normally. The only thing it cut into was my bathing suit options; and it's not like I spent my non-existent free time frolicking in a bikini on Caribbean beaches with Nick.

"Scar, dude," I replied. "Those of us without the gift of mutant super-healing get those, remember?"

I swear he totally rolled his eyes. "I know that, smartass. What's it from?"

I shrugged. "Dunno."

"You don't know?"

"I don't remember."

"What do you mean, you don't remember?" he demanded, his voice sharp.

"I mean, I don't remember exactly how it happened." I was quiet for a moment, tracing the outline of the scar with my finger. That cut had been amongst the most critical of the injuries I'd sustained in Malaysia. It had nicked my femoral artery. Though I didn't remember exactly how it had happened, I knew I'd been lucky that Nick had found me as quickly as he had. The loss of blood would have killed be far faster than the rest of my injuries.

I looked up at Logan. His brow was deeply furrowed, his jaw tight. With dark eyes, he stared at me fixedly. I felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

"It was a coma," I said, hoping a more lengthy –- though equally vague -- explanation would ease his intensity.

"A coma," he repeated like he didn't quite believe me.

"I was hurt on a mission. Hurt real bad. The worst I've ever been. After I woke up, my memories of the job were sketchy. I remembered more with time, but it's not all clear. Docs said it probably never would be."

Logan narrowed his eyes. "And how you got that scar is part of what you don't remember? Because that looks like a knife cut. Deliberate and clean. It don't look like a battle scar."

I thought hard for a moment, willing myself to remember something, anything, about who or how I'd been cut. It was a total blank. In frustration, I yanked the shirt over my leg.

"Does it matter?" I asked, fiddling with the papers in front of me, pushing them around. "My job is always dangerous. Some missions are more so than others. It's what I do. It's what you do and..."

I stopped mid-sentence.

"Wait a second," I said to no one in particular. I pointed at the papers. "What the hell is that?"

Logan jerked out of his chair. "What?"

"Right there!" I exclaimed, making a circle with my finger. I had inadvertently arranged the most of the papers in front of me into a larger, cohesive piece. "It's right there! We've been looking at them so closely that we haven't seen the bigger picture!"

Logan tilted his head and squinted, looking so much like a confused puppy that I wanted to laugh. Finally, he sucked a short breath in and exclaimed, "I see it!"

There was a continued curve from one piece to the next. They fit together. Those random pieces –- large sheets, small scraps, bits of newspaper, napkins and all -- fit together to make a larger picture.

Logan moved the pieces from the table to the floor. We knelt together, working quickly in tandem, arranging and rearranging the pieces, putting them together like a puzzle. Except, while Logan struggled to fit the pieces together, I understood exactly where each one was supposed to go. It was instinctual. Like how animals can find their way back to their homes from miles and miles away. Eventually, Logan stood up and out of the way, letting me work on my own.

I placed the last piece with held breath. The picture was big –- both as long and as wide as I was tall. Logan gave me a hand up. Standing in front of it, we looked down. What I saw made me gasp.

With the papers arranged just so, Kinjo's work fit together to form an astonishingly vivid picture. The scribbles made a background of cracking sky and smoke. In the foreground there was a face. It was a familiar face to both of us. It wasn't Jia Li and it sure as hell wasn't Elektra.

"Welcome to the X-Files, Scully," I said.  
The face Kinjo had drawn was my own.


	20. Chapter 20

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Twenty

Getting off of Madripoor and back to the SHIELD base where we'd left the transport was a trip spent in near silence. On the boat, I took the earpiece back from Logan, muttering a weak explanation about how it freaked me out to know that someone was listening to me breathe. Really, I just didn't want him to be able to hear me at all. With my mask on, I could scream if I wanted to and no one could hear me.

And I wanted to scream. I really, really did.

Logan vacillated between watching me with obvious concern and pretending like he wasn't watching me at all. I spent the trip ignoring him and trying to suppress that desire to scream myself hoarse.

When we reached the dock at the base, I was off of the boat before they'd cut the engine. Without waiting for Logan, I hustled away, hoping he'd get the hint. I was off the dock and starting up the hill to the base, when he made it clear that he hadn't.

"I hate that thing," I heard from behind me.

The statement stopped me dead in my tracks. I turned and looked back at him. Logan still stood on the dock, looking at the ground. With his hands on his hips, his bowed legs spread in a wide, sturdy stance, he didn't even look up at me when he continued.

"That costume. Stealth suit. Whatever it is you call it. When you're all geared up, it's like you ain't even there. Can't smell you. Can't hear your heartbeat. Can't tell if you're crying or laughing in there."

I didn't bother saying that that was the point. It's not like he would have heard me, anyway.

Logan looked up at me then. "Mind taking that mask off? I'd like to say this to your face, instead of a blank head."

I sighed. Nothing could ever just be easy for me. I crossed the short distance that lay between us, meeting him at the end of the dock. When I stood before him, I pulled the mask off.

"I'm blaming you for making me go out in public with helmet hair," I joked.

Logan wasn't to be dissuaded. His face was gravely serious when he said, "What is going on, Jubilation?"

I tucked my helmet under one arm, and rubbed my hand through my sweaty hair, stalling for time. Logan's lips twisted, indicating that I totally wasn't fooling him.

"I don't know," I finally sighed. "I swear, I don't."

"But you know more than you're telling me."

"Oh, yeah? Welcome to the club."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm pretty goddamn sick of being the only person in the room who doesn't get the joke. What's the deal with you and the Colonel? What's so big a deal that you can't hardly stand to be in the same room with each other?"

Logan stepped around me and started to walk away. "That don't got nothing to do with you."

"Bullshit." I followed, trotting behind him to catch up. "I so totally call bullshit on that. If it didn't have anything to do with me, you wouldn't be so reluctant to tell me."

Logan snorted, climbing rapidly up the hill to the main compound. "Not everything has something to do with you, darlin'."

I hoped to hell he was right about that. "Maybe. But you still have to realize that the total hate-fest you two have going on is going to affect me, no matter what. Or were you just planning on never seeing me again when this is over? Were you just going to slink away, back to the X-Men, or the Avengers, or an apartment somewhere I've never heard of, without leaving a forwarding address?"

"You might be better off if I did," he said, quietly enough that I almost didn't hear him.

I couldn't help it –- I started laughing. It bubbled up out of my chest, uncontrollable and borderline-hysterical. There was no learning curve with Logan. He never stopped feeling like everyone's situation would improve if he just disappeared. Never got over the feeling that everyone would be better off if he were dead or just gone. He was such a teenager. Logan just never learned.

Not that I was any better. No matter how much I thought I'd changed, I was just as much a glutton for punishment as I used to be. It was totally exhausting it was being his friend.

Logan, irritated by my laughter, stopped suddenly in front of me. I ran square into his back, and, losing my footing, sprawled gracelessly onto the ground. Looking up at Logan's face and its masked mixture of irritation and concern, I laughed even harder. After a moment, Logan gave a long-suffering sigh. Picking my helmet up off the ground, he offered me his other hand. Still laughing, I accepted. Logan pulled so hard that he almost threw me over again. I collapsed into his side, snorting. Logan sighed; I could totally hear him rolling his eyes.

"Alright, Slappy, let's take this show on the road." Logan wrapped an arm around me and tried to steer me up the hill, again. "You're makin' a scene."

"We are so fucked, you know that?" Leaning heavily on him as we walked, I laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks.

"You're gonna hurt yourself, if you don't stop that."

I hiccupped loudly and painfully.

"See?"

Taking a few deep breaths, I was more serious when I said, "Seriously, dude. We are so fucked up. Both of us. Like, totally beyond repair."

Logan squeezed me a little harder. "I know, darlin'."

The Communications area, as always, was one of the busiest places on the base. There was no way I could work in the main room with the full staff around me. When I asked, a member of the senior staff graciously showed me to a private room.

I wrote up my report, leaving nothing out. Everything that had happened since I'd last reported back, including Agent Kinjo, and how he had died. I'd held onto it for as long as I could. Keeping that out of my report now would be insubordination and an impediment to the investigation. With SHIELD, I had resources that far outstripped what I had on my own or with just Logan.

The only thing that gave me pause was the fact that I'd just seen my own face in Kinjo's scribbles. In truth, I was afraid. Freaked out. Totally scared out of my skull. The last thing I wanted to do was strike out on my own without SHIELD – without Nick – there to back me up.

The first thing I wanted to do was go home.

I wanted to get the hell out of Asia and forget that any of it had ever happened. I wanted to go back to the life I'd had. I'd complained about it, sure, but at least I'd known who I was and why I was there. The world had made sense, as much as it ever had, anyway. I'd always been a bit player in the story. Not really an X-Man. Just another hanger-on. And then, after White Day, I was just another former mutant. Another Agent of SHIELD. Malaysia had changed my life, and Nick had changed things even more, but I was still a small fish in the big sea of espionage.

It was late in the night when I finished the report off by sending copies of Kinjo's papers and a clicked off photograph of the picture Logan and I had put together. Hopefully Nick would make more sense of it than I did.

By the time I was done, I practically had to crawl back to the Spartan quarters Logan and I had been put up in. When I got there, Logan was already asleep, snoring softly from his cot. His breathing quieted on my entrance. He must have somehow known it was me, though, because after a moment his tensed body relaxed again, without his ever fully waking up.

As tired as I was, stretched out in the cot across from Logan's, I still didn't sleep easily. It was a long time before I relaxed enough to fall into fitful sleep.

From which, I was woken by one of the on-duty staff, letting me know that the Colonel was paging me. Cracking one eye open, I saw that the sky outside was still black.

"Time?" I croaked.

"It's 0400, Ma'am."

I groaned. It couldn't have been much more than three hours since I'd fallen asleep. Nick was so going to pay for that. I thanked the unfortunate man for wake-up call and he was apologetic enough that he managed to escape with his life. For a minute, I stayed in bed, letting the soft lure of sleep wash over me. The barracks-style cots weren't exactly luxury bedding, but they felt like heaven to my poor, tired body.

With another groan, I threw the covers back and rolled out of bed. The early morning air was just cool enough to make me shiver in my exhaustion. Sighing in irritation, I changed back into uniform.

From across the isle, I heard Logan shift on his cot. "Keep it down over there. Some of us are trying to sleep."

"Bite me," I shot back.

"Someone's cranky."

"Someone else has a death wish." My sleep-numbed fingers fumbled on my boot straps.

Logan laughed. I picked up my pillow and threw it at him, resisting the urge to smother him with it. It was way too early in the morning for mirth. I finished dressing in a silent pout, smoothing my hands over my hair and hoping that it wasn't sticking out too much. As I headed out, I heard Logan roll over again.

"All my best to the Colonel," he called.

I snorted and threw back over my shoulder, "I'm sure."

It was much warmer outside than it had been in the quarters. The humidity made my skin slimy and damp almost immediately. I tucked my limp hair behind my ears. There was a totally intense spa weekend in my future, though even that wouldn't salvage my ruined mani-pedi. Stupid climate. Stupid SHIELD. Stupid job. I muttered as I walked. New York had never sounded so good.

The Comm Area was less crowded than it had been earlier. Four AM was a quiet time for spy agencies and evil-doers alike. Nodding to the officer on duty, I shut myself in the same room I'd used before. I dialed in and, after a moment, the Colonel, in the familiar backdrop of his office, flickered onto the screen.

"Bane of my existence," I growled at him.

He gave me a rare, charming smile. "Light of my life."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Natasha sends her best."

Nick snorted. "So I read."

"Was she there on SHIELD business?"

"Nope."

"Well, she sure was having fun."

He smiled again, more predatory this time. "Ain't that nice. A vacation."

I nodded ruefully. "She does like making them scream."

He leered at me through the monitor. "You got that in common."

I blinked, too sleepy to banter. "Well, that was totally dirty."

Nick smirked. There was a hard pull at my heart; I missed him like hell. It must have shown, because his tone changed instantly.

"Hey," he said quietly. "You got yourself in some shit there, huh?"

My throat constricted. I nodded miserably and looked at the ground; unable to speak for fear that I'd bust out crying and embarrass myself.

Nick stayed silent, allowing me to pull myself together, before he said, "Pack it in, Jubilation."

My head jerked up. "What?"

"Pack it in. Come home."

"Is that an order?"

He was quiet again, for a moment, before he shook his head just slightly. "No. It's what every fiber of me wants you to do."

"Me, too." I smiled as slightly as his shake had been. "But I can't. I can't just let this slide. There's something weird going on out here. Something bad. Real bad. And...you saw the pictures that Kinjo drew?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I saw them."

"Then you know," I continued. "It's got something to do with me. And I have to know what it is. I can't live with this hanging over my head."

Nick stiffened when I said that. Though it was almost imperceptible over the monitor, it would have been obvious had I actually been in the room with him. I frowned. Nick never flinched. Ever. What was it that I had said that made him react so strongly? So noticeably?

I was about to just come out an ask him, when something on Nick's end started beeping urgently. Scowling, he swore under his breath and turned his attention to another monitor. The scowl grew deeper, taking over his whole face.

"How's it going there?" I asked, instead. "Everything OK?"

There was a brief pause. Another flash of jumbled emotion rolled over his face –- a tensing of the jaw and a crinkle between the eyes. Just a flicker and it was gone, his face becoming a blank mask.

"Right as rain, dollface." Nick's voice was easy and reassuring.

Liar, liar, pants-on-fire.

This time I called him on it. "You can't get away with that, you know."

His expression rueful, he didn't bother asking what I meant. "Don't I know it."

"What's really going on there?"

With tense shoulders and grinding teeth, Nick considered for a moment, before deciding on an answer. "Nothing for you to worry about right now. I'll brief you on it when you get back; for now, you focus on the task at hand."

I nodded and softly asked, "Is it something bad?"

"It ain't something good, but don't you worry about it. Concentrate on what you got in front of you and then get your sorry butt back home."

I mock saluted him. Aye, aye, Cap'n."

Nick glowered at me in a way that was more teasing than irritated. "That's Colonel, to you."

I nodded sagely in the same way. "Yes, sir."

He may not have been telling me everything, but at least he wasn't lying. There was a fine line between the two.


	21. Chapter 21

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Twenty-One

The sky had just begun to brighten from murky island black to paler blue-grey when I finally walked outside from Communications. The heat was oppressive, even just before sunrise. It took about twenty seconds outside in my black uniform for sweat to trickle down my back. I grumbled to myself about the island and the weather and the ugly, sweaty uniform and slogged off in the direction of Logan.

I ached all over from too little sleep and too much action, but I felt better. I felt okay. Nick knew everything – except my little brush with schizophrenia, of course – and I had the satisfaction of knowing that I, at least, wasn't keeping any secrets. Not really.

And I was starting to feel like Nick's secrets were ones I could live with. He was bound to have about a billion of them at this point, anyway. After all, he was totally old. If I insisted on knowing everything he'd ever kept from me, we'd never do anything but talk about his secrets and that wouldn't do at all. It would be totally boring.

Besides, how bad could it be?

I reached the top of the hill and wiped the sweat out of my eyes. Below me, the bay spread out a deep, dark blue. At the horizon, the sun was just beginning to peek up, brightening the sky. I watched it rise and thought about Nick – or, more precisely, my relationship with him. It wasn;t the sort of thing I often did. We were more of a go-with-the-flow sort of couple. Partially because it was pretty well impossible to make weekend plans when one or both of us would inevitably end up called out to work some sort of dire, doomy situation, but also it was just the sort of people we were. We were too used to lives lived in uncertainty. Everything always changing. People always dying, leaving, flipping sides, pushing us away, pushing us out, pushing us on. It got to the point where it was just easier to stop thinking about. It was easier to not have any expectations or plans. After a while it seemed like that was the best, most satisfying, least hurtful way to live, for people like us.

But maybe that was wrong. Living like that, one day at a time, never wanting more than I could snatch in the moment. Maybe it was time to start asking for more.

The question was what did I really want?

My birthday was just around the corner. My twentieth birthday – older than I ever thought I'd see. When I was twelve, twenty seemed like a hundred – a ridiculously old age that only the very tenacious reached. But here it was, just around the corner. So maybe it was time to start living like I might see thirty, or forty, or, hell, like I might see a hundred.

Not that I wanted the American dream or anything. That was something I could never see myself happy with. Me and an accountant and our two kids living in a little box made of ticky-tacky? No, thanks. But it would be nice to try to live more normally, have little snatches of the sort of life other people my age had. Maybe take a college class or two and see how I liked it. It would be nice to make some new friends, too. Friends my own age who didn't wear capes, or refer to me as Agent, or work on a giant, floaty boat in the sky. That would be nice, too.

There was, of course, the more difficult reality of it all. I'd eventually have to explain that, yes, I worked for SHIELD; and, sure, they might recognize me as being a former X-man; and, okay, I did have a 90-year-old boyfriend who didn't look a day past 45. Not that 45 was within the usual age range of acceptable dating prospects for people my own age. Any way you looked at it, it would be an up-hill battle, grasping at normalcy, but not an impossible one. I could do it if I really wanted to. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that I did. I did really want it, and I was going to take Nick along for the ride. He'd lived secluded in the Helicarrier for too long. He needed to start living on solid ground again, at least part of the time; and if he wanted to that with me, well, I wouldn't be totally adverse to the idea. It wasn't as though my building would be wigged out by having yet another law enforcement agent living there. Mrs. Hagherty, with the prominently displayed photo of her late husband shaking Nick's hand, would be totally thrilled.

I smiled. I was actually entertaining the notion of asking Nick Fury to move in with me. It was crazy. Totally insane. Off-the-wall crackers. I was totally going to do it.

Why not?

The sun was well up by then, reflecting onto the glittering water. I mopped the sweat off my face with my sleeve and watched the base come back to life, thinking about what I was going to bring myself back to life. When I began to get strange looks from the base staff, I shook myself out of my reverie and started off to wake up Logan.

It wasn't entirely a necessary errand; in tune with sun, he was already awake. He'd just swung his legs over the side of his cot, and he blinked blearily in the light streaming in through the open door behind me. Logan took one look at me and grinned toothily. It wasn't a laughing smile, though I'm sure I looked outrageously awful, sweaty and tired and beaten-up. No, it was more like he was smiling just because it was me who had opened the door. It was a like he was so glad to see me that he just had to grin.

When Logan looked up at me like that, all crazy rumpled hair and bare chest, my heart skipped a beat. I pushed that fluttery feeling way far down into my stomach and into the back of my mind, where I didn't have to think about why his smile made my stomach flip like Mary Lou Retton, and grinned back at him.

"Up and at 'em, private," I said. "We're on the move."


	22. Chapter 22

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Twenty-Two

And move we did.

We were in the air within the hour, jetting off to Mongolia, parts unknown – the last known location of Elektra Natchios, straight from her top-secret SHIELD file.

Logan was shocked that SHIELD had any recent on her at all.

"Even I ain't got any idea where she is," he said while we waited on the tarmac for a base technician to finish our pre-flight check.

The tech was dark-eyed and had a cute Northern English accent, reminding me of Pete Wisdom, if Wisdom wasn't totally gross. He flashed me the occasional cheeky, flirty grin as he went about his work. Logan scowled fiercely.

"Have you been looking for her?" I asked, eyebrow raised.

"No." He shrugged. "But I usually hear things, whether I want to or not. Can't believe you milkmaids got information that I didn't."

I put my hands on my hips and gave him a totally filthy look. "We're the world's premier intelligence agency, thanks very much. I'm sure we know a lot of things you don't."

"Doubt it." Logan raised his voice, so that the tech could hear. "You kids couldn't find your way home from school, most of the time."

The cute Brit gave him a totally filthy look, too.

"You better watch out," I whispered. "Now he's totally gonna puncture our fuel line or something."

"Hey, I just 'em as I see 'em."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "You're just jealous because we're way better at knowing things."

Logan barked out a disdainful laugh, and was about to reply with something equally derisive, I'm sure, when the technician joined us, finished with his check.

"All set?" I asked him with an easy smile.

"Guess you'll find out, yeah?" He glowered at Logan and stalked off.

I squeezed Logan's elbow and steered him toward the jet's ramp. "See? We're totally going to crash, now. You'll survive, of course, but I won't. And then you'll be sorry because I'm going to haunt you forever for killing me with your jealously."

"I can think of worse fates than having you around forever, darlin'," he said quietly.

He hopped quickly up the ramp, into the jet, leaving me stopped outside with my jaw dropped. For someone who didn't talk much, he said the most unnerving things sometimes.

The jump from Singapore to Mongolia was a comparatively quick one. While I didn't hold much hope of catching Elektra totally unawares, if she was even there; I did hope that she'd not know in advance that we were coming. Or, at least, that she'd feel more like having guests than trying to kill us outright.

"So, Elektra," I said conversationally when we were in the air.

Logan was flying the jet manually, preferring that to the autopilot. I didn't blame him. I liked the way the plane felt at my fingertips, too.

"What about her?"

"Just, you know her way better than I do."

"Do you know her at all?"

"Not so much, no. Just what I've read and what I've heard from the people who do know her. Natasha mostly. And actually, most of what I've heard from her is a list of totally dirty words." I thought about that for a moment. "She's pretty creative."

Logan snorted. "That's one word for it."

I sighed and gnawed at my lower lip. I was totally not going to get into with him over his bullshit playground fights.

"I know Elektra saved Nick's life when he was in the hospital after the big crash." I looked at Logan out of the corner of my eye. "I know you had a lot to do with that, too."

He grunted. "Long time ago."

"Yeah," I sighed. "It was."

There was a long silence. The quiet thrum of the jet lulling me, I jumped when Logan spoke again.

"I don't trust her," he said. "I like her, but I don't trust her. She's good at what she does. Real good. Gives me a run for my money. But she's got her head twisted around so many times that I ain't sure she even knows what she's doing anymore."

I sighed and let my head flop back on the seat. "Great. Crazy ninja assassin Barbie."

Logan snorted. "You really have been hanging around the Widow too much.

"Just enough, sounds like."

"Maybe. I wouldn't worry too much about Elektra. Don't believe a word that comes out of her mouth, but I don't think she'd hurt either one of us." He paused and thought. "That's my gut on it, anyway."

I nodded. "I trust your gut."

We were quiet after that. The water far below was a placid, uniform blue, broken only by the glitter of reflected light. The deep ache in every part of my body eased; I felt warm and relaxed. My eyes grew heavy and, without meaning to, I slept. Slept and dreamed.

Turbulence in the jet's descent jarred me out of slumber. I had been dreaming of the Malaysian jungle and of the viscous black oil-smoke that hissed my name and rushed into me through any opening it could find.

"Coming in," Logan said, the moment I was conscious.

"I noticed," I yawned.

"You up for this?"

"Up for what?"

Logan glanced at me and then nodded out the window. I looked out and sat bolt-upright. Outside, the clear blue water had been replaced by scruffy Mongolian mountains.

"Oh shit," I breathed.

Logan set us down in a narrow valley between two steep hills. The wind shook the jet all the way down.

"_This_ is Elektra's last know locations?" I squeaked, looking out at our bleak surroundings in disbelief.

"Nope," Logan replied. He pointed up at one of the hills – straight up. "Says you fancy intelligence types, she should be up there."

"Seriously?" I groaned. "We're climbing a mountain?"

Logan grinned sadistically, like he used to when he'd barge into my room at the mansion to tell me that we were off to someplace totally unpleasant. I sighed, unbuckling myself, and rose, stretching, from my seat.

"Of course we are," I said, moving to the back of the jet to gather everything we'd need to climb a fucking mountain. "How silly of me."

"Look on the bright side, darlin'," Logan said, following me.

"And what would that be?" I asked, opening on of the extra gear compartments. Inside was everything from ropes and pulleys, to crampons and ice axes. It was like SHIELD _wanted_ this sort of thing to happen.

"At least you ain't climbing a mountain in shorts and a rain slicker."

Logan didn't even stop laughing to duck when I pelted him with a carabiner.


	23. Chapter 23

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Twenty-Three

Initially, the mountain climbing was fine. More like a brisk hike than actually climbing anything. The hills in Huairou were more of a strain. It didn't take long for that to change. Soon it turned into a strenuous hike, and from that into a hard scrabble. The faded brown-green of the grassy hillside became a twiggy scruff and then, finally, gave way to sheer, gray rock. From there, it was more and more steep, the wind blowing more and more sharply, until we were climbing the slick face of a crumbling cliff in bitter cold.

It wasn't a party for either of us. The rocks above and around us were loose; Logan put a claw into a section that sent a hail of rock and dirt down onto me, where I was pressed into the cliff. Not long after, a larger rock shook loose above us, catching Logan in the face. I heard him grunt as it bounced off of him with a weird clanging clunk. He looked down right away to make sure the rock hadn't caught me, whom it would have done much more serious damage to, as well. His chin was fully opened; I could see the adamantium give a gruesome twinkle, surrounded in blood and gore, and then watched his body knit itself before my eyes.

That never stops being totally cool.

For what seemed like an eternity, we grunted up the side of the mountain. It was near dark when I finally watched Logan disappear over the top. Gritting my teeth, I followed him and, with a final push, heaved myself after him. After all of that, I had a difficult time standing. My arms were rubbery, and my legs were shaky. I gladly followed to where Logan was crouched in the stubbly underbrush and collapsed on my knees beside him. I pulled my mask off; even in the cold, my hair and face were wet with sweat from the exertion.

"Thanks," Logan said.

"For what?" I asked, trying to mop some of the sweat off of my face with my arm. The stealth suit's fabric was totally not absorbent, though.

"For taking that thing off. Had you breathing in my ear all the way up." Logan, noticing my futile attempts at cleaning myself up, reached over and wiped my forehead with his gloved hand. "Here. Sweat stings if it gets in your eyes."

I nodded dumbly. I knew that sweat stings. Of course I did. I ever knew that it was the salt in it that made it sting. I'm totally not dumb. Somehow, though, I couldn't quite open my mouth and get out an appropriately sarcastic quip. Not when he had moved down from my forehead and was gently rubbing my cheek.

"Quit," I finally said, batting his hand away. "You're gonna get my face dirty."

Logan snorted, and understandably. It was a totally moronic thing to say, even by my own standards.

"You could take it out," I said, trying to regain my faculties. "The earpiece, I mean."

"Nah. I'd rather live with your noise than not know if your alive inside that thing."

I huffed. "You really hate my gear, don't you? It's top of the line, y'know."

He shrugged, rolling his shoulders afterwards. "Throws me off. I ain't used to fighting beside someone I can't sense."

I was surprised. "Iron Man?"

"Makes a noise."

"Really? I can't hear it."

He shrugged. "I can."

"Spider-Woman?"

"Stinks to hell. Pheromones."

"Spider-Man?"

"Never shuts up." Logan glared at me.

I giggled. I could totally see Logan not being able to spend more than five minutes with Spider-Man without wanting to strangle him. Me? I thought he was funny.

Logan had his head up, sniffing the air. I rested quietly, willing my strength back.

"Can't smell any Hand," he finally said.

I squinched my nose. "Do the Hand have a specific smell?"

"Sorta." He raised his head again. "Can't smell anyone. Don't think Elektra's been here in a while, if she was ever here at all."

He gave me a significant look. I got it; SHIELD couldn't even get this right.

"How do you know?" I asked crankily. "Couldn't the wind be carrying any smells away?"

My face damp head was beginning to turn numb from the cold.

"I know, because I'm the best at what I do," Logan said, his nose up and sniffing again.

I almost fell over in shock, grabbing onto Logan's arm for balance. He looked down at me in surprise. I rocked back onto the balls of my feet, but didn't let go. Because, holy shit. He did not say that, all out-loud and stuff.

"Wait," I said, practically dying trying not to laugh, "But what is it that you do? Is it something that's nice? Does it have something to do with kittens?"

Logan glared at me.

"No, really! I can't remember. I mean, it's been a while since I last heard you talking about what you do and the relative levels of pleasantness of those activities."

"Used to be that a man got some respect around here."

I slapped my forehead with my free hand. "Wait, wait. I remember now! It's not nice at all."

"Remember how you used to hang on my every little word?"

"'I'm the best at what I do and what I do isn't very nice.' That's how it goes, right?"

"Before the ball-busting. Remember that? When you were interested in everything I had to say."

"Hey, why don't you say it again so I can make sure I got it right."

"The good ol' days," he mused, pulling at his mask. "You ready, or are you still putting me in my place?"

"Oh, I'm all done," I said, using my grip on him to pull myself up. He was solid as a rock. My own legs were sore, but with the promise of more movement, they seemed willing enough to cooperate.

"And, Wolverine?" I leaned over his still-crouched form, much more closely than was really necessary. My lips hovered just over his cheek.

He didn't move his head at all. "Yeah, darlin'?"

"It wasn't your every word I was interested in."

I quickly kissed the side of his mouth and then, pulling my own mask over my head, disappeared into the deepening twilight.

What the hell was I doing? I didn't even know anymore.

It was clear almost immediately that all of that work was for nothing. The camp was deserted. Not deserted in the watch-out-for-that-ambush way. It was just empty. Elektra had long since packed up and move on, if she'd ever really been there at all.

"Shit," I said aloud, standing with my hands on my hips in the middle of the camp, after I'd poked around.

I'd approached with caution and had looked around carefully, but it was totally obvious that the only thing there was burned out fire pits and a bunch of rickety shacks. Logan joined me in my disdain.

"Yep," he said. "Empty."

"Big, fat, stupid waste of time."

And then the real injustice of it hit me.

"And now," I wailed, "we're going to have to climb back down the mountain."

Logan grunted, scowling, and opened his mouth to say something. What it was, I don't know. There was a strange flicker around us, and he shut his mouth again with a snap. For a moment I thought my mask was malfunctioning, but Logan was frozen, silent. Looking around warily, his head raised up, nose working furiously.

"Something's here," I said, knowing only he could hear me.

Logan didn't reply; I could feel the tension radiating off of him. Slowly, quietly, I pulled my guns from my chest and thigh rigs. They rested heavily in my hands. I didn't like them, never would; but in the moment, they were a comfort. Protection from something I couldn't see, but that made my every fiber scream _Danger!_

The light was slipping away; soon it would be dark. The wind died and the violet evening flickered again. It flickered all around us, swaying and shimmering. And then there was the heat – that terrible burning – and the smell, the vicious smell of sulfur that I shouldn't have been able to catch through my mask, but was there nonetheless, as though it was coming right out of my memory. Right out of me.

And I knew.

"She found me," I said, without thinking.

Logan's head swung around. "Who found you?"

I never got the chance to answer – a second more and they were on us in a horde. They looked like the Hand, otherworldly ninjas, swathed in black. They weren't Hand, though. I knew it. I was sure Logan knew it. These were not the Hand I'd fought before. They weren't Elektra's Hand. They were Jia Li's. The reeked of evil and their eyes burned like hot embers in the depths of their black-wrapped faces.

Petrified and dumb, I stood there in horror and let them come. It wasn't until Logan came to life with a roar that I snapped out of it. My arms came up, held out wide as though I was going to embrace them. Without taking aim, I squeezed the triggers. Both shots made it home; two of the creatures disappeared in a vile puff of noxious green-yellow smoke.

A thrill raced through me. They were gun. I took my shots and they were gone. I could make them go away. If I just fought, I could make it all go away. It was a beautiful moment, that thrill of freedom. It washed over me in a glorious wave, and then I fought.

It took a head-shot, I found, to make them go poof. They hardly slowed when I shot them anywhere else. Swinging around, I pulled the triggers over and over, lining the creatures up in my sights and then taking them down. Ducking and moving, avoiding their punches, their kicks, I murdered them, two by two. They hardly touched me. I was a glorious machine, an instrument of death. Those undead creatures died by my hand, falling all around me, the air filling with their toxic fumes. I murdered them, one after another. I murdered them and I laughed. I felt like the Hand of God.

Until one of them took me by surprise.

While the benefits of being small are many, there are some pretty serious drawbacks, too. One of the faceless, red-eyed things grabbed me from behind. It picked me up off my feet and, with hardly any wind-up and not even grunt of effort, hurled me away, stopping the carnage. I flew away from it, and right towards Logan. Breathless and surprised, I couldn't give him any warning; it happened too quickly. He must have heard me behind him because he swung around, claws out, just as I was about to barrel into him.

Logan's reflexes are good. Better than good. They're superhuman. They're not miraculous, though. He pulled back enough to avoid taking my head off, but wasn't fast enough to circumvent cutting me at all. My body ricocheted off of his and hit the ground with a teeth-clattering thud. It didn't hurt, not then. I wasn't even sure I'd been hurt until I looked down and saw the stealth suit cleanly cut open in three broad strokes across my chest.

Logan was looking from my chest to his claws. There wasn't any blood on them. The cuts had been too fast, too clean. There was blood welling up on my chest, though. It's hot and wet, as it began to drip down my front. I looked up at Logan again.

"It's okay," I said, only to him. "It's okay, Wolvie. It wasn't your fault."

My words hardly seemed to resonate with him. He was already starting to go. I'd watched it before, of course, but it never stopped being alarming, just like watching him heal never stopped being thrilling. His whole body changed, crumpling and shifting, until Logan was gone and there was only the beast. There was only his rage. He broke loose from his brief stupor with a howl that made my hair stand on end. Had it been anything else on the other end of his rage, I might have felt a bad for them. Instead, I wished him happy slicing and turned my attention back to myself.

First, I made a mental note for Isha. Adamantium cut through the stealth suit like it was butter. Not that he'd be that surprised by that. No one expected it to hold up to the miracle metal.

My hands felt heavy; I looked down at them and laughed. I was still holding my guns. _Way to go, Lee_, I silently congratulated myself. _Guess you're not useless after all._

Standing up with more conviction than I would have thought possible, I swung around, looking for the motherfucker who almost made me eat adamantium. There was a swarm of them, black clad ninjas with glowing eyes and the stink of sulfur. They were indistinguishable, one from the other. That was okay, though. One was as good as another. They were all the same to me.

With blood soaking my chest, I walked calmly at the throng, my guns up and level, shooting with each step I took.


	24. Chapter 24

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Twenty-Four

The whole world seemed to change whenever I held a gun. Everything looked different--seemed dimmer, blurrier, slower. During those times, I could feel how my body worked like a machine. Though I hadn't been born for this, I'd been tempered to it. It was useless to think about what I could have been had my parents not died, had I not been a mutant, had I not lost my powers. This was what I was, what I'd been trained to be; and I'd been trained well. I could hear every breath I took, could feel every heartbeat, every drip of sweat. There wasn't any pain, though there should have been. I couldn't feel the slices on my chest or the omnipresent ache that had been with me since I had woken up in the Helicarrier infirmary days before. I felt nothing; there was nothing but the machine and the cold, hard anger and my steady hands pulling the triggers over and over again.

Wolverine--I couldn't think of him as Logan when he was like that. Logan was a man, a sane, rational man. The Wolverine was an animal, a loyal animal, but an animal just the same. That animal was destroying the opposition with far more efficiency than I could. How could I, with only the tools I was given by SHIELD, compare to a man whose entire existence had been as a living, breathing weapon? There were times I wished I hadn't been so afraid to use my powers when I still had them. I'd never known what they were really capable of, and I never would. It was like I'd squandered an inheritance and had to make do on the bare scraps of what I'd had before.

I ran out of ammo before I ran out of creepy ninjas to kill. My last clip spent, I threw my guns on the ground and went for the Fairbairn-Sykes that was strapped into a leg holster. Bending over to retrieve it, I got a good look at the ribboned fabric of my suit. I tried not to think about what lay underneath the shredded cloth.

The dagger was light and easy in my hand. I preferred it to the Marine KA-BAR that most Agents, the Colonel included, carried. The slim blade and almost delicate handle fit my small hands like it was made for them. With a little bit of luck, I could force the blade between a person's ribs. And with a little more skill than luck, I could sever an artery in one quick motion. I didn't know if creature who wore black shinobi shozoku like they were real people had arteries, but I was willing to give it the ol' SHIELD try.

Ducking a quick thrust from one of them, I slashed up with the combat knife, hoping that there would be a carotid artery for it to sever. Luck was on my side--my knife slipped into its neck like into rotten fruit and I was choking on ninja fumes. Inside my mask, I grinned. Killing the undead with knives: fun for the whole family! Disney should make it into a ride.

It went on like that--the knife in my hand cutting into the too-soft flesh of whatever those things were, while they landed blows on me that I couldn't feel--until I shoved my blade up into a jaw and, twisting, ripped it down again. The ninja went up in smoke and I looked around for another. There weren't any, though. It was over. I looked around for Logan. He was about thirty paces away from me, claws out, breathing hard, still tense.

"Hey," I said quietly.

His head snapped around, his body still ready to fight. Seeing me, his hands dropped a little. Logan shook his head as though that would clear it. His body straightened and I could tell that he was himself again. Wherever it was that he went to when the berserker took over, and I really didn't want to know, Logan was back. I breathed a little sigh of relief.

"Is that is?" I asked, my knife still sat, light and ready, on my palm.

Logan took a moment, sniffing the air and listening hard, before nodding. Another moment and he sheathed his claws. I relaxed, attached my knife to my leg, and went looking for my guns. Logan found them before I did. He handed them to me and watched me strap them into their holsters. The thigh rig was tricky; I struggled with it, my fingers clumsy. The second time the unloaded gun fell on the ground, Logan crouched in front of me and picked it up. He grasped my thigh in one hand and strapped the gun in with the other. My stomach did a flip and then tensed into a neat coil in my lower abdomen. When he made sure the gun was secure, his other hand tightened around my inner thigh. My knees wobbled. I insisted to myself that it was just the fading adrenaline rush and worked on regaining the ability to speak.

"They weren't Hand," I finally said, and almost totally normally, too.

"Nope," Logan agreed, standing up.

"You noticed?"

"They didn't smell right. Too dead."

"And the Hand are...?"

"Less dead."

Too dead. Less dead. Dead. All dead. Just like we all would be someday. I shook the thought off, wishing I could still talk to Vatinius. Dead was his expertise. My own experience in that area was limited to the actually being dead. And also to being chased around the globe by a woman I thought I'd eliminated well over a year earlier. I couldn't really get my head around that one. It was all too unbelievable and freaky--not that I hadn't seen more than a few unbelievable and freaky things in my day. Yeah, I'll take Alcoholic Weasels for a thousand, Alex.

"But besides the too dead smell--and that's gross, by the way--it was just too easy."

"Not that easy." Logan nodded at my chest.

"Lucky shot," I muttered and, looking down, pulled gently at the tattered fabric. It was getting too dark to see and the mask's night vision wasn't conducive to close inspection. My skin felt wet, though, and my bra damp and sticky. "Too easy for the Hand. It was like they weren't totally there. Like they were, I don't know, puppets or something. Do you know what I mean? Did you...did you get that from them?"

I stammered out the last sentence; my tongue felt so thick. I blinked hard; my vision was blurry. My face was hot, my eyes scratchy. I reached up to rub them and smacked my hand on my mask.

Logan looked at me askance. "How you doing there?"

I waved him off. "Fine. Just sort of...confused."

And I was. There was a wave of disorientation that made me, for a moment, unsure where I was and what I was doing there; and then my legs began to shake.

"Shit," I said and even my voice was unsteady. "I'm going down."

Logan looked at me with such alarm that I wanted to laugh, even as my knees buckled. There was a roaring in my ears, like on Venice Beach with the ocean and the crowds, and then everything went dark.

When consciousness returned--at first like having the lights raised in a dark room and then like finding the right focus on a pair of binoculars--I found myself scooped up off of my feet and cradled to Logan's chest.

"What?" was my eloquent return to the world.

"Time to go, darlin'." Logan was on the move, as swiftly as he could without jostling me too much.

I struggled weakly against him. "Put me down, then. I'm okay."

"No can do. We're taking the fast way down. I don't think you're up for anything else."

We reached the cliff's edge, not far from where we had hoisted ourselves up just a short time earlier. The wind was even colder up there, now that the sun had set. Logan carefully released my legs, letting them drop to the ground, though he didn't let go of his hold around my back. It was a good thing, too, since, as soon I tried to hold up my own weight, my legs knees gave way again. Logan, to his credit, didn't even say that he told me so. He just tightened his left arm around me and kept me from falling.

"Hold on as best you can," he said.

The claws in his right hand sprang out with the familiar sliding click, and I had a terrible feeling that I knew exactly what was going to happen next. There was no time to protest, though, because the next thing I knew, Logan was jumping over the cliff with his claws in the cliff-side, slowing our descent while sending a rain of dirt and small rocks after us. I ducked my head automatically, though my mask would protect me from all but the larger rocks that might fall. Even slowed down, Logan still hit the ground with a jarring thud, grunting loudly.

"Here's a request," I said, my breath stolen away. "Let's stop doing that."

"No arguments here." Logan straightened his legs and twisted on his right knee. I heard a sickening, grinding sound as something popped back into place.

"What was that?"

"Knee." He stood still, waiting for it to heal, and then shook his leg out. "They falling ain't bad, you know."

I laughed, despite myself. "It's the landing that'll get you."

"Every time, darlin'," he replied, his voice lighter than it had been.

He scooped me up again, in a brisk manner that dictated that he wouldn't listen to any arguments about how I could walk on my own. Even though I was feeling a little more confident in my body's willingness to work properly, I didn't bother. Instead, I rested my head against his shoulder and let him take care of me. Surefooted and agile, Logan moved swiftly down the steep hillside. We reached the bottom much faster than I could have on my own, even if I had been able-bodied. It was totally impossible to feel in any way adequate around the super-powered. Logan had me beat right out of the box. Hell, right then, Squirrel Girl had me beat.

Logan slowed at the bottom and then came to a full stop. His head was up--listening, smelling. I tried not to breathe too loudly.

"Shit," Logan swore softly. His arms tightened around me until I squeaked in protest.

"What's wrong?"

Logan growled, low and deep in his chest. "There's someone out there, near the jet. No getting around them."

I felt a twinge of fear. There was someone waiting for us, and I was in no shape to do anything about it. And then, over the fear, I felt a stab of irritation. It would be nice if I could have five minutes to recover from one beating before the next one started. But that's how it goes, right? You talk the talk, you walk the walk and you take getting the shit kicked out of you. I could pull it out of the fire. Hell, I always did. I was woman; hear me roar!

Now, if only I could just get Logan to put me down.

* * *

AN: Just wanted to leave a bit of a note on this chapter to explain the changes that have happened with the way I am posting this story. As some of you know, I'm quite pregnant with my first child. It has been my intent for some time to be done with this novel before the baby arrives, whether by writing it through to the end or by giving up and proclaiming it abandoned.

Needless to say, I've made the decision that, since I started the bloody thing, I'm going to finish it. Therefore, there shall be a bit of a mad dash to the end. What does that mean? It means that there will be several updates every week. You'll get each chapter faster. That's the sunny side of it all. The rain cloud is that the quality will be a bit less than previous, in terms of typographical and spelling errors. An issue some of you have noticed. For that, I apologize. I've never used a beta on this particular piece of fanfiction, having always considered it more of a lark than my other work. The alteration is that I'll not be spending quite so much time proofing it myself and more time getting the story out.

There we are then. I have started Jubilee on this journey, and I do mean to see her through in short order. Thank you all so very much for reading and for your exceedingly kind reviews. It means quite a lot to me that you have enjoyed this.

Sakura (The Last European)

24 January 2007


	25. Chapter 25

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Twenty-Five

I tapped Logan on the chest to get his attention. "Down, please."

Logan didn't argue, just gingerly set my legs on the ground without saying a word. He kept one hand on my back, though. I leaned against it gratefully while figuring out if my legs were going to cooperate. It turned out that they were weak, but mostly functional again.

"Okay," I said, breathing a bit unsteadily. "I'm all systems go. Well. Most systems go, anyway. Mostly. Most systems mostly go, is what I am."

Logan ignored me, cocking his head just slightly to the side, as he looked out at our unidentified enemy.

"I'm out of ammo," I continued, watching his face glowing in my mask's night vision, "but I still have my knife."

Logan lifted his nose and sniffed.

"I wish I was more prepared for this," I babbled on, "but none of that has been totally business as usual, you know? Maybe I should find a way to store more clips or use a different...hey!"

"Horse," Logan said, and, leaving me to stare incredulously after him, started off in the direction of the transport, as though he wasn't even listening to me at all. Not that that was a new experience, or anything.

"Horse?" My voice rose shrilly. "What the hell does that mean?"

Logan gestured back at me with a flat palm, indicating that I should stay put while he checked it out.

"Get bent, dude," I said and followed close behind him.

Nearer to the transport, I realized what had Logan meant. There was a horse. Crouching on the hard-packed ground was a man, shriveled and ancient, swaddled in thick, warm clothes. Behind him was a shaggy pony that looked like it was almost as old as the man. Upon seeing us, he jumped up.

"Please," the old man said in heavily accented English. He reached, fumbling, into a pouch that was hung around his chest.

Logan didn't seem alarmed. That was fine; I was alarmed enough for both of us. The man seemed harmless--and, like, who brings a horse to a fight, these days--but I'd seen enough weird shit and been sliced and punched at enough for one evening. I popped the gun out of my thigh rig like I was Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral. It wasn't loaded, but he didn't know that. Not that it mattered, anyway. The old man just stood there, facing my gun without fear, presenting what he had been looking for--a folded piece of animal skin.

"Please," he said and shook it at me. "Please."

Logan stepped between us, effectively interrupting my brief reign of terror. Though, to be totally fair, there's usually actual fear involved in a reign of terror. I was officially pathetic enough that even the elderly weren't afraid of me anymore. Irritated, I poked Logan in the back with the muzzle my unloaded gun. He ignored me and accepted the offering.

"Thank you," Logan rumbled to the old man.

"Please," the old man replied and, peering around Logan, gave me a toothless grin. With one last _please_ to me, he clambered back onto his scruffy pony and rode out into the night.

I let my gun hand drop, my arm trembling and tired. Logan turned around, turning the bound up wad of skin over in his hands.

"What is it?" I asked.

Logan held the skin up to his nose and sniffed. "Dog."

I actually gagged a little bit, deep down in my throat. "That's disgusting and totally not what I meant."

Logan shook his head and handed the skin to me. "Let's get out of here first and worry about that later."

I took the skin gingerly between my thumb and forefinger, totally not interested in holding onto gross dog skin, even with gloves on. Logan lowered the ramp into the transport and, with a supportive hand underneath my elbow, steered us up into the relative warmth and safety.

On board, Logan went to the cockpit to get us into the air, leaving me to collapse into one of the seats in the rear. He didn't say where we were headed, and I didn't ask. Instead, I set about to unwrapping the mystery skin, trying to touch it as little as possible. It was tied up with a coarse, grey-brown yarn. It took some picking to get it unknotted even enough to get a good look at the skin itself. There was writing on it--symbols that I didn't recognize for a moment before they clicked for me. It was written in Greek. I sighed gustily and tossed the skin aside without bothering to open it further, Greek not being one of the languages SHIELD had pounded into me.

At the transport's first movement, I tentatively strapped myself in and ground my teeth together through the jarring lift-off, the harness jerking painfully at my chest. Once the jet felt even remotely level, I unbuckled the straps, taking the pressure off, and started trying to get out of my gear. Pulling my gloves off hurt, and the chest and thigh rigs were a struggle, but getting the mask off was pure agony. I came to the painful realization that there was no way I was going to get the suit itself off on my own. I was going to have to get Logan to help me--just another humiliation to add to the day's trauma total.

There was a basic med-kit in the transport--basic by SHIELD standards, anyway. It was probably better stocked and had more advanced equipment than most hospitals. I sometimes wondered how much of a difference SHIELD could make if we focused even a fraction of our resources on helping individual places and people in need. Humanitarianism wasn't exactly our specialty, but maybe if there weren't so many desperate places, there wouldn't be so many desperate people and there'd be less need for the stuff that we did specialize in.

I'm just a dumb kid, though, so what do I know?

"We're up," Logan said, making his way to the back of the transport. "You look at that skin?"

"It's all Greek to me." I frowned at it again. "Like, seriously, it's in Greek. Can you read Greek?"

Logan shrugged. "Sure."

"Sure, he says, like it's no big deal." I tossed the skin over to him and went back to my perusal of the med-kit.

Logan took a look at the writing on the outside of it and snorted. "It's addressed to 'the Little Death'."

"They know you pretty well, huh?" I pulled out a pair of surgical scissors and a bottle of antiseptic, the sight of which made me grimace. Docs always said that the antiseptic wouldn't sting, but it always did. In my experience, anyone in the medical profession was a pathological liar.

"Maybe, excepting that it's feminine--the little means little girl." Logan made a quiet, humming noise. "I think it's addressed to you, darlin'."

I looked up at him quickly, wincing when it pulled at the cuts. That was a phrase that was becoming much too familiar. Little Death. Poor, little dead girl. Like in my dreams. Like Jia Li had called me. I looked down at the surgical scissors that lay flat in the palm of my hand and wondered what it all meant. Wondered if I should tell Logan about everything--about the nightmares I had never stopped having and the dead woman who, it seemed, had broken into my head. If I wasn't crazy, that is, and the crazy was a very real possibility.

With so many secrets inside of me, it was getting hard to tell which ones I should keep.

Logan untied the skin and opened it quickly, his eyes narrowing as he looked it over.

I tried to swallow, but it stuck in my throat. "Who's it from?"

"Hand."

"Really?" I made a scrunchy disbelieving face. "How do you know?"

Logan held up the skin so that I could see the inside. There was a handprint in red ink on it.

"Oh," I said, taking a shaky breath. "You'd think ninjas would be more into subtlety."

Logan grunted, his attention already back on the skin.

"So," I said after giving him a moment to read it. "What's it say?"

"Invitation," Logan growled. "Looks like we been granted an audience."

"An audience? With who? Elektra?"

"Fucked if I know. I'd hoped the Hand got put to bed a long time ago."

"So, essentially," I said, squinting at him, "we're taking a meeting with no idea who or what or why or how many ninja guys we're gonna have to eviscerate or shoot up when we get there?"

Logan snorted. "Essentially."

"We've come a long way, baby."

"Done worse. Known less." He pondered the slashed fabric that covered my chest. "How bad does it hurt?"

I grinned. "Felt worse. Died from less."

There was a moment of shocked silence before Logan crossed his arms over his chest and gave an icy glare that I hadn't found unnerving since I was eleven. "Not funny."

"Oh, come on. Little bit funny."

Logan scowled. "Not funny at all."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "You're going to want to lighten up a little bit, 'cause I'm going to need your help."

"Didn't realize a cheerful disposition was a requirement."

"In this case it is. I need you to use your Edward Scissorhands and cut my uniform off of me."

Logan gave me a look that said, in no uncertain terms, that I was totally not amusing.

I dropped the act and sobered. "Seriously, though. I need you to just cut it down the front. That'll be the easiest way for me to get out of it, I think."

Logan nodded, getting it. "Now?"

"Probably best to just get it over with," I said, sitting back down in the seat I had vacated.

He popped one claw and sternly said, "Don't move."

"No worries there, dude."

I futilely tried to relax in the chair, my grip on its cold arms tightening involuntarily. Having already been on the business end of his claws once already, it made me nervous to have one so near me again. Keeping my eyes on Logan's face as he crouched in front of me, I avoided looking down at what he was doing. He looked up at my face once and then, with a clenched jaw, he set himself to work. The adamantium cut through my nearly indestructible suit like it was made of plastic wrap. He lay it open, slicing first down the front and then a diagonal cut to each side, and then sat back on his heels, pulling his claw back in. I let go of the breath I'd been holding in a big, noisy gush.

"See? No worries at all," I said, trying to keep the atmosphere light. It sounded forced, even to me.

Logan didn't try to do the same. He was grim when he said, "Yeah, darlin'. No worries."

He stayed still while I peeled the cut up remnants back, but couldn't contain a flinch at what lay underneath.

I looked down and took a sharp breath. "Oh, boy."

The ragged fabric had hidden three cuts from view. They were clean, not jagged. Perfect slices. Had the situation been a little bit different I might have admired what precision weapons Logan had beneath his skin. As it was, though, I looked like the star of a slasher movie. My white bra had been stained red and brown with drying blood. The cuts themselves were still oozing through caked-on dirt and grime. I sincerely hoped that there wasn't any ninja-dust making its way into my bloodstream.

I was lucky, though, that Logan had had such a quick reaction. The cuts weren't terribly deep, and they shallowed out from one side to the other. Angry wounds on one side were barely worse than paper cuts on the sharp-ridged bone of the opposite shoulder.

I looked up at Logan. He had a great poker face, but I could still see the horror in his eyes.

"I don't think it's as bad as it looks," I said, but my voice quavered.

Logan remained unconvinced. "If you could see yourself right now, kid," he said, his rough voice soft.

I offered him a shaky smile. "I'd quit my glamourous life of spy and run for the nearest spa?"

Logan didn't reply, but his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.

"Stop it," I said quietly. "I might not be amongst the almighty caped-ones, anymore, but I'm not made of glass. I can take some abuse without having to go sit on the sidelines."

The hands clenched again. "That abuse shouldn't be from of me."

I sighed. Always the disciple, never the martyr. I'd forgotten how exhausting it was, being the cause of Logan's self-flagellation. It was a wonder that Jean hadn't been pooped all of the time. Luckily, I had the perfect remedy for it--a genuine need to take my clothes off. What better way to change the mood from morose to awkward than having to ask Logan to take my bra off for me?

To his credit, he did so without any comment. He pulled the rest of the top of my suit off with an uncharacteristic gentleness and unhooked my bra without flinching. I turned away from him as I shook it off over my arms, trying to preserve some sense of modesty.

Opening sealed bottle of antiseptic, I spoke over my shoulder. "I'm probably going to yell, now. At the very least, there's going to be swearing."

Logan looked over my shoulder at the bottle. "That shit hurt?"

"More than anything that's supposed to be good for you should," I said and squirted the bottle over my chest. It burned so badly, I saw spots.

"Jesus...fuck...whore," I sputtered. My knees trembled. I felt the bottle removed from my hand and Logan's hand on my arm, guiding me back to the seat I had vacated. I hardly had the presence of mind to use one arm to cover my bare breasts.

When I could breathe again without wanting to scream the breath out, I opened my eyes to Logan crouched in front of me again with a sterile cloth in his hand. He was looking straight at me, an unspoken question in his eyes. I nodded, just a little wiggle of my head, and Logan pressed the cloth to my wounds. It felt cool and soothing.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Saline," he replied, patting at my chest with an easy, soothing rhythm. "Should've used this first. Maybe cut the antiseptic with it. Would've made the burn easier to take."

I watched him look the cuts over with a discerning eye. He went back to the med kit and searched though it with practice.

"Where'd you learn all of this?" I asked. "I mean, it's not like you need to know it for yourself."

Logan grunted. "War."

"Which one?"

"'Nam."

I was surprised. "Really?"

After pouring out more sterile saline onto a fresh gauze, Logan returned to crouch before me. "I was a medic."

"Really?" I responded again, this time with more forceful incredulity.

"Posed as one, anyway." Logan patted discriminately at me, searching for and gently removing debris. "Had to learn enough to keep my cover."

I nodded. "Makes sense. So, what were you really doing there?"

"Nothing you want to know about." He pressed too hard, making me gasp at the sudden pain. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Of course I want to know," I said, trying to ignore the painful result of his reaction. "There's nothing I don't want to know. Secrets are always worse than whatever it is that's being covered up."

He looked up at me then, his eyes wide and sad and startlingly, disarmingly young. "Then I don't want to tell you. Not about that. Not about a lot of the things I done."

"Okay," I whispered.

He went back to work, finishing in silence. Finally, he stopped. We both looked down at the dirty, bloody gauze in his hand. He recoiled at the sight of it, jumping up to dispose of it.

"Clean yourself up," he said gruffly. "I'll help you bandage when you're done."

Logan faced away from me while I used gauze and saline to wipe off the rest of the blood, not turning around until I needed him again. He then expertly applied ointment and bandages, wrapping my chest securely. While I managed to pull a pair of fatigues on myself, I needed Logan's help to pull a SHIELD-issue black tank top over my head. For him to help me, I finally had to uncover my breasts. Logan made a very obvious show of not looking too far down. Not that my boobs were anything to write home about in the first place, but I felt vaguely insulted.

"You're not even going to try to sneak a peak?" I asked as he helped my struggle into the shirt.

"Your boyfriend," he said stressing the title, "might beat me up."

I gave him a hard look. "You know, I wish you'd just come out and tell me why you hate each other. I know that's not the way it used to be. You used to, at the very least, respect each other. And it can't be that bad. Not so bad that you should be afraid to tell me. I'm resilient, particularly when it comes to you."

I stopped talking, shutting my mouth with a snap. Logan's gaze was intense; he looked at me like he'd like to shake some sense into me. When he finally spoke, his voice was dark and harsh; I could hear the growl in it.

"You should get away from him--as far and as fast as you can."

"Logan," I sighed. "Come on. Cut it out."

"You don't know him like I do," he persisted.

"And you don't know him like I do."

"He don't deserve you. He ain't good enough for you. Not by half."

"Do you hate him that much?"

"The shit that man done to me, it ain't forgivable. You don't understand."

"So, explain it to me. Make me understand. I want to understand." I grasped one of Logan's hands in my own two; he looked down at them with a puzzled expression, but didn't pull away. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but abruptly shut it again, shaking his head.

"You should get away from the both of us," he said, the sadness back again. "Go far away from all of this. Be a normal woman. Live a good life."

"Logan," I said, holding his hand harder and peering around to look him in the eyes. "I do live a good life. I mean, sure, my ops are black. But they're not that black. I have friends, a best friend, even. Her name is Sashenka. She's my Human Resources liaison. I've got my family's place in China and an apartment in Brooklyn. And, as much as I whinge about it, I like my job. I get to do a lot of good. Logan, you should meet Sasha. You should see my apartment. You should see that I don't need to have a normal life to have a very nice life."

And it was true. I hadn't realized that until I actually said it. Logan took a deep breath, opened his mouth as though he were going to speak, but exhaled instead.

"There's coordinates in that note," he finally said very quietly, still not looking at me. "I set us on course back to Huairou. You're going to stay there while I check it out on my own."

I tilted my head again, looked straight into Logan's eyes and firmly said, "No."

"No arguments," was his equally firm reply. "You ain't in any shape to be heading into a dangerous situation."

"Oh, there's not going to be an argument. You can't tell me where I'm allowed to go and what I'm allowed to do."

"Wanna bet?"

"You can't. And you know why? It's because you, my friend, are not the boss of me."

Logan snorted derisively.

"You're not. SHIELD's the boss of me, and SHIELD doesn't give a shit. I could be at death's door and they'd ask if I couldn't just get some paperwork done before I go."

"Well, that sure do make me feel better about it," Logan said, crossing his arms.

"Don't it just?" I said cheerfully, releasing his hands, finally. "Now, let's get this bird turned around. We got a prom date with the devil to get to. Don't want to stand Ninja Barbie up; she might have to put on a thong and kill us."

It was the best material I could come up with at the time, but it didn't even get a smirk out of Logan. I patted him on the shoulder and then shoved him toward the front of the plane. He glowered at me, but moved in the proper direction.

"Oh, I so totally always get my way," I gloated, as I followed behind him.

"Ain't spanked enough as a child's my guess," Logan offered.

"Still taking applications for the job," I returned, lightly.

Logan snorted. We both strapped into the cockpit chairs and Logan took back manual control of the jet. It dipped a bit and then I felt the jet haul around sharply as he changed direction.

"So," I asked, "where were the coordinates to? Did you recognize them?"

"General location, yeah." Logan's hands clenched around the yoke. "Somewhere in Siberia."

"Siberia. I wonder," I began and stopped, thinking better of it.

Logan looked over at me, a nudge in a glance. "You wonder what?"

I sucked my lips in and shook my head. "Nothing. It's nothing."

He raised an eyebrow. "It's never nothing with you, darlin'."

Acquiescing that point, I said, "It's just that I've never been to Siberia. I just wonder if it's everything people think it is."

"What's that?"

I turned my face to the glass. "Cold and dead."

"Well, I guess you'll have to find out for yourself."

Outside the jet, there was only the endless black of night. My eyes strained trying to find a shape or a point of light in the nothing. My voice was quiet when I replied, "I always do."


	26. Chapter 26

Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth

Chapter Twenty-Six

Siberia was pretty much what I'd expected. Let's just say that, when we arrived at the coordinates we'd been given, the weather was not exactly ideal. And, oh, landing was a real treat. Logan clutched the yoke, the muscles in his arms bunching and straining, as the wind tried to toss the jet around; and the swirling snow closed in around us. When we finally set down on the ground with a jarring, rattling thud, we both sat very still for a while, hardly daring to breathe.

"Way to stick it," I said, once I felt less like my stomach was trying crawl out of my mouth.

Logan uncurled his fingers from around the yoke, flexing them.

"Easy as pie," he said, sounding almost convinced.

"What does that even mean? Because pie is totally not that easy." The occasional holiday with Clan Guthrie had proved that everything about pie--from making it, to trying to snag a piece of it before it was gone--was way hard. "Maybe it means the number pi."

Logan unstrapped himself and got up from his seat. I followed, moving stiffly and slowly.

"Not that that pi is easy, either," I continued, babbling at his back. "There's, like, whole super-computers devoted to calculating it and stuff."

Logan stopped in the hold. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking around. "You got cold weather gear in here?"

I shrugged. "Sure."

There was a tall compartment near the first aid stuff. Opening it proved that there was an array of parkas, goggles, gloves and hats.

Logan grumbled. "This thing's like a magician's hat."

"Just call me Penn." I giggled. "You get to be Teller."

Logan did a terrible pantomime of being trapped in a box. I giggled madly, and then hunched over a little bit, trying not to gasp at how much pain it caused.

"You alright, there?" he asked.

I waved my hand dismissively at him. "It's fine."

Logan cast a worried look at me before turning back to the matter at hand. He played Goldilocks with the SHIELD parkas, finally slicing six inches of sleeve off of the largest size.

"I know, I know," I agreed. "They don't really stock the transports for Capes."

Logan raised an eyebrow at me. "Or for Munchkins."

My own parka was the smallest size, but it hung loosely on me. I swatted at Logan with the floppy extra length of my own sleeves. I settled for rolling them up. Logan could get away with cutting SHIELD property up, but I already had a reputation for being totally destructive.

"So, we're going out into that, obviously," I said.

"Obviously." Logan pulled on a hat, leaving his ears uncovered, and chose a pair of goggles.

I eschewed that stuff in favor of the leftover bits of my stealth suit. It's gloves, booties and mask were way warmer than anything regular SHIELD issue. "But what exactly are we going to do once we get out there?"

"We're going to go over to that bunker and knock on the door."

I blinked. "I'm sorry. What bunker are we going to go knock on? There's nothing out there."

"There's a bunker less than a click north from us."

I gaped at him. "There wasn't anything on the radar."

"It's there."

"How do you know these things?"

Logan shook his head at me like I was a silly girl.

"Right," I muttered. "Don't ask, don't tell. Silly me."

I made sure my guns were reloaded and securely strapped to me, zipped up my parka and pulled my mask on. Logan gestured toward the hatch. I hit the release.

There was a first blast of cold air that would have made me want to scream if only I could have retained the power of thought. Logan clipped a cord from his parka to mine and led me out into the blinding, icy white.

It was less than a kilometre--not more than half a mile--to our destination, but it was a miserable distance. There's something about being cold and snow-blind that makes people more prone to panic. I kept my eyes on Logan's back and one hand on the cord between us. Still, it wasn't particularly reassuring. By the time we reached the bunker, I was cold through and on edge. And what happened next didn't put me at ease, at all.

There was a thick metal door, miraculously untouched by the snow. Logan put his hand up to it, but, before he could touch it, it swung open on its own. I had that sick feeling of dread, deep within my gut. There was no time to dwell, though. Logan was already tugging me in through the door. When it didn't shut automatically, Logan slammed it behind us.

With the door shut, it was immediately warmer. I pulled my mask off. The thing wasn't meant to be worn on its own, and there was snow packed around my neck.

"Fuck Siberia," I said to Logan, unzipping my parka and trying to scrape the snow out of my nooks and crannies.

He wasn't paying attention to me, though. His didn't seem at all effected by the brutal weather. Logan's head was up and his eyes were clear, like a hound pointing at some prey in the brush.

"It's not much," came a voice from ahead of us. "But it's home."

Appearing like a ghost before us, all swaddled in white, was Elektra.

She didn't look quite as crazy as I thought she would.

"Elektra," Logan greeted her.

"Logan," she replied.

They smiled at each other in a way that was friendlier than I was comfortable with. Neither of them looked at me.

"How goes it?" she asked.

"Reasonable."

"The girl isn't well," Elektra said. It took a moment for me to realize that she was referring to me. It was like I wasn't really there.

"I know," Logan replied tightly, and that was more like what I expected. He stepped between us, fully blocking me from her with his body. His voice was dangerous, sending out a clear back-off message.

"My people could help."

"Not on your life, Elektra." Logan pointed one finger up at her. "You don't touch her. None of you touch her, or you're gonna have a big problem."

Elektra's lips curled up in a private smile, and she pulled her cloak closer around her. "Relax. We're all friends here."

"Oh, I'm relaxed, darlin'. You keep it friendly and I'll keep it relaxed."

"Of course," Elektra was still smiling that small, secretive smile. "You worry too much, Logan."

"Doubt it," he replied, keeping himself between us.

I peered out and then stepped around him. "I don't think we've met. I'm Jubilation Lee."

Elektra looked down at me for the first time. "I know who you are, Agent Lee."

"Cool." I grinned. I probably should have been scared, but it was actually kind of flattering.

Elektra squinted at me a little bit. "If you'll follow me," she said, "We can go somewhere a bit more comfortable. But, if you'll allow, I do have one request." She made a motion at me. "No guns. Leave those here, please."

I frowned. While I wasn't usually totally helpless without a weapon, I was in no shape to walk into the lion's den without one. For all of my posturing, I didn't think my body could take anymore abuse.

"Why?" I asked. "I thought you said it was all friendly. So, what does it matter?"

"I'm not fond of guns," Elektra admitted.

"Me neither," I replied. "But they're a necessary evil for those of us without all of the fancy after-factory upgrades."

Elektra looked at me for a long moment, her face unreadable. In return I gave her my best oh-no-you-didn't look.

"Consider it a personal favor, then," she finally said. "And accept my word that you won't need them here."

I looked over at Logan who raised his hands to indicate that he totally wasn't getting involved. Some help. I sighed and stiffly unbuckled my holsters.

"Fine," I muttered, laying them gently on the bulkhead. "I don't see what the big fucking deal is, though."

Elektra, beckoning for us to follow her, said, "I've had a gun turned against me too many times to appreciate them, I'm afraid."

I snorted. "Oh, boo-hoo."

Logan shot me a sharp look and shook his head once, quickly.

"What?" I muttered. "It's not like I start whinging every time I see a crucifix."

We followed her through the close metal corridors of the bunker, her swaying white form drifting gracefully in front of us. It was an old Soviet installation, obviously; there were signs and warnings in Cyrillic all over the place. Though we followed her, me behind Elektra and Logan protectively behind me, for a long time, down and down underground, we didn't see anyone else. No workers. No staff. No ninjas. No Hand. I could feel them, though. My skin crawled with their presence. Finally, she led through a doorway into a small room, formerly some high level officer's quarters, I guessed. And what I saw in there was totally surreal.

There was a rosebud tea service laid out on the table.

I looked from the tea to Elektra to Logan and back to the tea again. "Oh, you have got to be kidding."

"We're not uncivilized," Elektra gestured to the table, taking a seat herself. "And I find things run more smoothly with tea. It lubricates the process."

I made a face, not liking the sound of that, but sat anyway. "The process? What process?"

She poured the tea delicately, like she was one of the ladies who lunch, rather than a trained killer. "This. We have much to discuss. Sugar, Logan?"

Logan, looking at the delicate bone china with a mixture of trepidation and disdain, shook his head. Elektra looked to me. I held up three fingers.

"Like what?" I asked.

She dropped three sugars into my cup without splashing. "Let's not play dumb. I have no patience for coy games."

"Fine," I said sharply. "We were attacked in Mongolia. What do you know about that? Obviously it was you who left that message there. Was it really for me? How did you know I'd be there? And if you know so much, why did you leave it in Greek? I don't know Greek."

Elektra offered cream. Both Logan and I declined. "Really? You should learn. It's a wonderful language. Full of nuance. Of course, I'm biased."

"The note." I tried not to grind my teeth impatiently. "That note was addressed to 'Little Death'. That was for me?"

Elektra paused for a moment before answering, "Yes."

"Why did you call me that?"

She watched me, searching my face. For what, I don't know. "I didn't call you that. Not specifically. To be perfectly honest, I didn't know who I was writing to. I only knew what I was writing to."

"And what was that?"

Elektra smiled, but it was predatory rather than warm. "An ally."

I snorted. "You got that wrong, lady. I'm not your ally. My loyalty's to one organization and it sure as hell ain't yours."

"Listen to that," Elektra said, turning to Logan. "She sounds just like him." Her voice quieted, darkening. "Times changes, though. And we must change with them."

"What's that supposed to mean, Yoda?"

Elektra answered me without looking away from Logan. "It means that the truth changes everything. Wouldn't you say, Logan?"

Logan scowled at her, but without any real heat. He mostly just looked tired.

Elektra turned back to me. "What you fought there, those were my people." She held up her hand when I opened my mouth. "I said they were my people. When they attacked you, they weren't under my command.

I sighed. "I know. They didn't seem like Hand."

She was interested in that. "Oh, really? What did they seem like?"

"They were," I made an ick face, "squishy."

For a moment, her face quivered, and she looked terribly sad. It was just a slip; she was quickly composed again. That was enough, though. Enough to make me like her, even if I couldn't trust her. She was totally wacky-nuts, I was sure of it, but she still cared about her organization. She cared about the people--if that's what they even were--who took the mark of the Hand.

"We've been on their trail," I said. "SHIELD and Avengers intelligence says that it's some kind of crime syndicate; and we've picked up more information that says that the ringleader's a woman."

"Natasha tried to put it on you," Logan said.

"Tattletale." I shot him a dirty look. Considering Natasha a friend, I hadn't wanted to drag her name into this. There wasn't much of a point in feeding the fire of their feud. Plus, I didn't want to get Elektra's hackles up over nothing.

Too late, though. Elektra's mouth was twisted into a bitter smile. "How very unlike her. There's nothing that she won't blame on me, if the opportunity should arise."

"Stop it!" I slammed my hand down on the table. The service jumped, tea sloshing onto the table. "Stop doing that! I can't believe that, after all of these years, you're still doing this. Fighting over a dude. What're you, sixteen? And Daredevil? I mean, Luke Cage, sure. I could see that. But Daredevil? Honestly? The guy wears red pantyhose."

I pointed an accusatory finger at Logan, who looked as though he'd like to snicker.

"And you can stop looking so smug. You're no better than she is. Your grudges are petty and bitchy and they get in the way of getting real work done. I am sick and tired of this shit. So, stop it. Just stop."

I stopped and took a breath. Logan and Elektra both stared at me. Logan, with his face in the surly twist of a toddler who's been put in time out. Elektra watched me with an arched brow and an appraising eye. I stared right back at her.

"No one talks to me like that, anymore," she said.

"Yeah, well, maybe you need to get yourself a naysayer." I sipped my tea.

"Indeed," she agreed. "Perhaps you'd like the job."

I choked, hacking and spluttering. Logan smacked me lightly on the back while Elektra looked on, her amusement evident.

"Is that a no?" She picked up her own teacup and calmly sipped.

"I'm all set, thanks," I rasped, still coughing tea.

"Well, then," she said, standing. "I suppose our business is concluded."

Logan and I stood, too, exchanging a quick look of confusion over our sudden dismissal.

"I'll see you safely back to your transport," Elektra continued. "I wouldn't want you to lose your way. Siberia isn't safe this time of year."

A light bulb turned on in my head at her words. There was more, but it wasn't safe here. The Hand was all around us, and they'd already been compromised.

We followed Elektra back out again, through the corridors, to the outer shell of the bunker. I felt cold already, and the feeling that something was watching us pressed my head like a vise.

It was not until we were nearing the transport, the three of us, that the feeling began to recede. Inside, with the hatch shut tightly against the outside, Elektra turned to us, tall and lovely, with snow hanging from her white robes like it was part of them.

"You could feel it, too," she said.

"Yeah, I could feel it," Logan said and looked to me.

I nodded. "Me too."

"Alright." She nodded and repeated, "Alright."

"What does it mean?"

Elektra looked very sad when she turned to me and said, "The hand has five fingers, each of which can exist independently of the others."

I gasped liked she had slapped me. The words from my dreams, repeated so often that it was like they were branded on me.

"What the fuck?" I asked, shrilly. "Where did you hear that? What the fuck does is even mean?"

Logan rested his hand on my back. It was supposed to be reassuring, but it just made me feel more on edge. "She means were looking for one of the other fingers. Ain't that right, darlin'?"

"I don't know." Elektra smiled, tightlipped, no teeth. She looked only at me when she answered. "It's possible."

"Come with us," I said impulsively. "You don't have to go back."

"But I do," she said, and something changed in her. She straightened and was the Elektra we'd met in the bunker again. The graceful ghost, fluid and deadly. "I chose a path and it's still the right one. This is just a detour."

Excuse me if I didn't quite believe her.

"Consider my offer an open invitation," Elektra continued, holding out her hand and smiling in a way that I would almost call kind. "We're not quite what you think we are, Jubilation Lee. We're not what it seems like we are right at this point in time. There may come a day when what we truly are is more appealing to you."

I sincerely doubted that was true. I couldn't imagine a circumstance that could make me switch sides on such an extreme level. When I reached out to shake her hand, she avoided it and grasped my forearm with a grip so tight it was nearly painful.

Shaking my head, I said, "Thanks, but no thanks, Elektra."

Elektra did not smile when she said, "Sometimes you don't chose the Hand. Sometimes the Hand chooses you."

She squeezed my arm tightly enough to bruise before letting it go, and then raised her hand up to brush her thumb lightly across my forehead, holding my eyes, watching me carefully the whole time. I didn't flinch, but pushed my chin up at her aggressively, even though her touch made my skin crawl. As though satisfied with something, she smiled again.

"When the time comes," Elektra said, "we'll be there."

"Be where?" I asked. "How will you know?"

Elektra just smiled and said, "We'll be there."

She nodded at Logan, who, nodding back; opened the hatch. With her cloak wrapped around her, she turned to go.

"The note." At the sound of my voice, Elektra stopped in the doorway. "Why did you write it in Greek? Why not in English?"

She looked over her shoulder at me. Her face was mostly obscured by the white hood; I could see the tip of her profile and her wild, dark hair beneath it. "You were supposed to know the old language. So, I wrote in the old language."

"You were wrong about that. How do you know you're not wrong about the rest of it?"

Though I couldn't see her smile, I could hear it in her voice. "Perhaps it was just the wrong old language."

Elektra turned her face a way from me, again. Before I could think of a follow-up question, she laid her hand briefly on Logan's chest. The two shared a look--I could only see Logan's face, but that was indecipherable--and then she disappeared into the swirl of white.

"What the hell?" I said as the hatch rose up behind her.

"Don't ask me. That woman's got mojo I don't wanna try to understand." He was quiet for a moment. "But I ain't sure she knew what she was getting into when she brought the Hand to heel."

He was quiet then, as we took our now customary seats, Logan in the captain's chair, me in the co-pilot, and all the way through the pre-flight. It was only as the jet began to rise that he spoke again.

"I'll say this, though." His voice was very grave. "Nothing good comes out of the Hand. Nothing. Not even when good's what they mean to do."

I nodded silently. There wasn't anything to reply; I heard his warning loud and clear.

We lifted off, up into the sky, and turned the jet toward home.


	27. Chapter 27

AN: First of all, let me just say that I am so very sorry at taking such a terribly long time with this. It was rather inexcusable to leave it for so long. Thank you all for your encouragement, for your congratulations on the birth of my daughter, for the lovely emails and the wonderful reviews you've left. I appreciate it all more than you can imagine. The reason for the delay was simply that I backed myself into a corner in the plot. It was such a mess that I wasn't going to bother about it. But because there's been so much interest in seeing how the story ends, I'm desperately trying to figure out a way to make it work. I do know how it ends, and I very much want to write the sequel, but it's these middle bits that are driving me mad. Hopefully I'll get the rest of this bloody story out within the next few months, and just get on with things. It's exciting to be writing again.

Again, thank you all so very much for everything. I never expected such a response to this silly spy story. ---Sakura (The Last European)

* * *

**Hand to Hand, Hand to Mouth**

**Chapter Twenty-Seven**

I was back on the Helicarrier. I was running the corridors in a hospital gown, my bare feet slapping the cold metal floor. My breath came hard and rasping. My legs were burning, but I pushed on, begging them for speed, for strength they didn't have.

There was something chasing me. Something terrible.

I didn't call for help. It wouldn't matter if I did. There wasn't anyone who could help me. So, I ran. On and on, as fast as I could until, choking for air, I rounded a corner and found myself at a dead end. I slapped at the wall, pounding it with my hands, as though that might make it disappear and allow me to escape. I turned and pressed my back against the wall. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my own fast breathing. There was nowhere left to run. There was nothing more I could do.

It was coming for me, that terrible thing.

In my hand, I felt something cold and smooth. I looked down. It was my knife--the Fairbairn-Sykes I kept strapped to my leg--resting comfortably in my palm. I closed my fingers around the grip, squeezing until my knuckles turned white. A feeling of peace settled over me. I knew what I had to do. It was the only thing left. My only option.

Before I could act, though, a scream cut through the unnatural silence, jarring me. The knife fell out of my hand and kept falling. Down, down, down it fell into black nothingness. The floor was gone. The Helicarrier was gone. There was nothing but dark, empty space around me, and I was falling, too.

And then I wasn't. I was lying down, and my skin was cold, and my tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of my mouth. Opening my eyes felt impossible--like I'd need the Jaws of Life to pry them apart.

And there it was again--that scream, that awful scream. I couldn't tell who it was, or even if it was a who at all. There was something inhuman about it. It was a scream of terror and agony, that animal instinct to vocalize horror. My eyes opened, though my vision was fuzzy, and I struggled to sit up. The screaming grew louder and louder until it seemed to be right on tope of me. There was something restraining me, and I fought against it. Struggling silently, I tried desperately to get away.

The noise stopped, cut off mid-scream. In the new quiet, I heard a voice. At first, I could only comprehend that the voice was soothing, and then, finally, there were words I could understand. The voice said, "Easy, kid. Easy. You're okay." And then more sharply, "Knock it off, Jubilee. You're gonna hurt yourself."

It broke through. I stopped fighting so hard, and focused on my surroundings. There were hands, two strong hands, both holding me up and keeping me from thrashing. My own hands were bruised and scraped, and there was a drip injected in the left. I wasn't wearing anything, but was bandaged from shoulders to navel. The rest of me was covered in a blanket that didn't do enough to keep out the chill. I was in a bed, uncomfortable and half-reclined. There was a curtain drawn around the bed and the lighting around me was dim. I smelled disinfectant and something else, something horrible that, though it took me a moment to place, was a scent that had become much too familiar--burnt skin and hair. I focused harder, still breathing in painful little gasps. I recognized this place, that voice, those hands.

I really was on the Helicarrier, in the medical bay, and it was Logan who was holding onto me.

"Hey," Logan said after I'd quieted, his face pressed into my hair.

I tried to reply, but all that came out was a dry croak. Logan carefully let me go, making sure I eased back onto the half-upright bed. There was a lidded cup with a straw on a stand next to me. He handed me the cup, and though my hands shook, I managed to get the straw into my mouth. After a first careful sip of the water, I drank in big, greedy gulps. When I'd finished it, I tried speaking again.

"What was that?" My voice was still hoarse. "That noise?"

"Don't know." Logan sat gingerly on the bed, leaving one foot on the floor. "There was an alarm and a lot of hubbub. Someone's hurt bad, I guess. I didn't look."

"It woke me up." I nodded and then frowned. "Something was chasing me."

"You were dreaming," Logan said gently.

"It felt real. Like it had happened before, but I can't quite remember. It's like it's right there on the edges, and I can see it out of the corner of my eye, but I can't quite get to it." I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration for a moment. "It's always like this. Dreams like memories that aren't really mine."

He shifted on the bed. I opened my eyes to find him looking at me intensely.

"You dream like that a lot, darlin'?"

I shrugged, wincing at the motion, and instead of answering, asked, "How long was I out?"

Logan frowned at my evasion. "Half a day, give or take. You fell asleep on the transport, and I couldn't wake you up."

"Shit."

"No fooling. Caused quite a ruckus on the deck."

I flopped my head back on the pillow. "I am so dead. Makris is going to have me shuffling paper for a year."

"Lady doc with gray hair?" Logan asked.

I nodded feebly.

"She was pretty upset when they brought you in."

I groaned. "Make that two years. The medical staff hates me."

Logan gave me a funny look. "The hell are you talking about? They love you here."

I snorted. "They do not. I'm a pain in their collective ass."

He looked at me skeptically.

"You're delusional," I told him. "They're always mad at me."

"'Cause they worry about you. You go off and get hurt, and they have to patch you up and send you back out, just to do it all over again. And then they gotta sit up here and wonder if this is the time you won't come back at all" Logan looked over his shoulder at the shut curtain behind him. "I don't envy them. Take my job over theirs, any day."

I bit my lip. "I never thought of it that way, I guess."

Logan nodded and looked down at his boots. He was quiet, then. We both were. For a long time, we sat there in silence, listening to the intense bustle of the room beyond the curtain. Finally, Logan shifted his weight. He rubbed his hand over his jaw and gave me a sideways look, before speaking again.

"Listen, darlin'. I have to go. There was a message from the Avengers waiting for me. Something they need me for."

I tried not to look disappointed. "Sure. I understand."

"Had to wait until you woke up, though." He leaned closer to me. "There's something I gotta tell you before I go."

"Ooo, you've got your serious face on." I tried to crack a smile. It was a weak one. Logan's featured darkened. It really was his serious face, now. I reached out and put my hand over his. "What's up, dude?"

He cleared his throat. "It's like this. Elektra's crazy, alright. Crazy as anyone I've ever seen. But she said a few things that were alright. About the truth. About how it always comes out. How it changes everything."

Logan shifted uncomfortably. Confused and tired, I watched him half get up and then settle down again.

"Well, I have to tell you the truth, now. Even if it changes everything for you. For both of us."

I'd never seen him look so uncomfortable, so hesitant and miserable. It was starting to scare me.  
"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to," I said. "I don't need to know anything you don't want to tell me."

"Yeah, you do." Logan hunched in on himself, turning away from me. "The mission in Latveria--you know the one I'm talking about? The big one?"

I nodded mutely.

"I didn't remember going on it. Before White Day. Before I got everything back. We done a terrible thing there. Hurt innocent people just to send a message. I ain't making excuses about that. I knew the score going in, better than anyone, I think. But until White Day, I didn't remember any of it." Logan paused. When he spoke again, his voice was rough with emotion. "Fury wiped me. He sent me on that mission, and then he wiped it right out of my head. Knowing all that he did, all that he does, about the holes in my head, and how I been used, he still did it. Went into my head and took my memories, my time, away from me."

"No, Logan…" I shook my head in disbelief. "He wouldn't do that."

"He did. Just like I told you before, he don't do what he has to. He does what he thinks he has to. It ain't the same thing."

I didn't say anything. I just sat there dumbly, trying to breathe. The bandages around my chest felt too tight.

Logan stood up. He pulled his cowl over his face, again. He'd said what he wanted to, and now he was leaving.

"You're leaving," I said, stating the obvious.

"I have to go," he agreed. "Avengers."

"You just said what you said, and now you're going to go."

"You need to know who you're really dealing with, here."

"Well, thanks, Logan." I'd found my voice again, and it was cutting. "Thanks for the intel."

"You're angry," he said darkly. "You don't believe me."

"No, dude. I believe you. I'm not angry about that," I said loudly, almost shouting. I didn't care. I struggled to sit up more. "I just can't believe you're doing it this way. No, I take that back. This is so typical of you. You always do this. Always. You make some grand speech, drop something heavy like this on me and then take off."

At my loud, angry voice, the curtain around my bed was yanked back, revealing one of the nursing staff. He pointed one finger at me. I lay back down without disagreement. He turned the finger on Logan. "Mister Logan, you were told you could stay here only if you didn't disturb the other patients. And," he said, gesturing at me, "just until Agent Lee woke up. I see she has, so now it's time for you to go."

"I'm sorry," I apologized quickly, cutting off the argument that I could tell Logan was about to start. "I'm really, really sorry. Can we just have another minute?" The nurse frowned and crossed his arms. "Just a minute, honest. And we won't disturb anyone. It's just," I shrugged weakly, trying not to wince, "business, you know."

The nurse gave a long-suffering sigh. "Fine. One minute." He held up one finger at Logan again. "That's all. And you'd best be gone by the time I come back with Doctor Makris, if you know what's good for you."

Logan grunted. The nurse sighed again, raising his hand to massage his temple as he left.

"The makers of Tylenol are going to have a banner year because of me," I said wryly. "I should buy stock."

"You and me, both." Logan fiddled with cowl, needlessly adjusting it.

I breathed as deeply as I could, considering how tightly I was wrapped. My chest was starting to ache, and I wondered how much medication they had me pumped up on.

I hoped it was a lot.

"I'm sorry," I finally said, apologizing again for what seemed like the millionth time. SHIELD had turned me into a human contrition machine. "I'm not angry at you."

"Then who're you angry at?"

"I don't know. I just..." I trailed off, not knowing how to continue.

"S'ok, kid."

"No, it's not. It's just that I realized you thought I needed to know." I swallowed hard, my throat feeling tight. "That there's a reason I need to know what Nick did. But I trust him, Logan. I trust him with my life."

"Was a time I did, too," Logan said with significance.

I thought about that for a moment. When I spoke again, it was very quietly.

"You think he had me wiped."

Logan nodded, paused and then shrugged. "I don't know. Not for certain. But after all I've seen, after everything that's happened, I know something ain't right. I know something ain't right with you." He paused again, and then continued as delicately as he knew how. "There's something wrong about you. It's not just your scent. It's not just growing up. I can't put my finger on it, but I know it's not right."

It was a terrible truth. I felt like he'd cut me wide open, exposing something dark I'd covered with bright lies. My skin felt hot, and I cursed the damn bandages. I felt like I was in a straight-jacket.

And maybe that's where I belonged.

"Jubilee?" Logan queried.

"I'm scared," I said, and it felt like my own voice was choking me. "I'm scared of myself."

The moment they left my mouth, I knew they were the most honest words I'd spoken in a long time. Logan took them to heart.

"You listen to me, now," he said. "It's going to be okay. We're going to figure this out, you and me. And I might have to leave for a little bit, but I ain't going anywhere. Not really. Not while there's still questions that need answering. I ain't leaving while you still need me. Not this time. Not ever again."

I held up my hand, wanting to quiet him. "Don't, Logan," I whispered. "Don't make promises you can't keep."

He sat on the bed again, pulling me against him in a hug, gentle around my shoulders, but tight enough that I could feel how much he meant it. I rested my forehead against his chest and my eyes burned dry from the tears I wanted to cry, but couldn't.


End file.
